Joyful Noise

Poem written for a collaboration with artist Sheryl Vine for The Artistree Project and presented at Fieldmoot in 2024.

Now blooms the heat of summer
when sleepers wake from death
to tear their shrouds asunder
and, with a joyful breath,

fling heavenward with gusto,
on goss’mer wings take flight—
like windows of cathedrals
lead-veined yet filled with light—

alight on living pulpits
with timbrels bold and bright,
proclaim to all and sundry
a song at edge of night.

Beneath their leafy perches,
now others take their cues:
add lyre, harp, or zither;
each one has gifts to use.

The players raise their plectrums
within their dew-crowned halls.
The orchestra crescendos
as day’s soft curtain falls.

Now from those folds of velvet
the swaying dancers rise,
all bearing winking candles,
reflecting twinkling skies.

An honor ’tis to witness—
if we have eyes to see—
the beauty and the splendor
in such cacophony.

Oh, could we be so brazen
and could we be so bold
to sing with such abandon
this song both new and old?