Choir
Softly, it lowers itself from above,
an adagio of light,
whispering eternities into the crevices in the air,
so pure it makes the silence around it audible,
a muted chorus for its song.
A voice that is an androgyny of original beauty,
divorced from Man and Woman,
or harking back to a time when they were one,
a tone so untainted,
it cannot have come from emotion,
yet in its echoes is a boundless empathy,
one that grieves for pain, aches for desire,
cries for loss, hope for hope,
for it is an innocence that nonetheless
understands the burden of humanity
and the price of life,
and in its luminous soarings,
offers a promise that
all this soon will pass.
Then this lone voice is joined by an epiphany of angels,
sonorous with a lullaby for tired souls.
Sing, boys, sing,
before manhood takes away the angel in you,
before a thirst for laughter coarsens your throat
and grounds its weightless timbre,
before tears shed and unshed
salt your voice into a cynic’s cackles,
and you join the calloused throngs
to whom you now choir.
For your voice will soon fall
through clouds and octaves to earth,
and, so fallen, forever lose its
wings.
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