St. Mark's

(I found this buried in the depths of my blog drafts. I wrote it last year, after going to listen to a compline choir while on a mobile trip in Seattle.)


 
I recently got a chance to sit in on the compline choir at St. Mark's episcopal church in Seattle. 

It moved me so much I wrote a poem about it.  Revel in my cheesiness.

Tiptoe swiftly past
the doorman with the smiling eyes
raise my head to see
hundreds of figures.
Some intently focused
eyes closed and lips silently moving,
Others lightheartedly receiving,
eyes open and wandering.
Prostrate, kneeling, cross-legged
in pews, on ledges, on concrete floor
filling nearly every open space
in the colossal chapel of St. Mark's.
 
Find my seat on the cold ground
amidst people of every kind
cross my legs
and breathe.
The sea of sihouettes
allows me to absorb
into the atmosphere,
morph
into the hundreds
gathering for a half an hour
to simply listen.

Silence.
The church is void of
talking, moving, rustling.
The stillness is thick
but the anticipation is loud
each person waiting
in silent expectation
to hear sounds that allow them
to escape from the present
and enter into the unknown.

Finally a note is heard
Rising slowly from a undefined place
Growing greater as the seconds tick by
A note
in perfect pitch
Clear and crisp
echoing of the walls of the chapel
Then
another note
wraps its arms around the first
in perfect harmony
Then
another
and another
notes linking arms with one another
sung from the mouths of monks
hidden from sight.

Notes turn into words
words into prayers.
Verses from the holy scriptures
developed into chants 
the chants of the Gregorian monks at st. Marks.

Their voices unite the crowd
all gathering, wonderstruck
by the beauty
of what is tickling their ears
melody, harmony, praise
striking in our hearts
that familiar feeling
of being enveloped in something
our heads deny
but our hearts can't help
but give into.