A glorious confluence of sensory delights lifted my Coronavirus-quarantined spirits and inspired me to write this...paired with a picture I took when I was 17, in my beloved Larchmont Manor Park. And here is the glorious music, "O Magnum Mysterium" by Morten Lauritsen, that popped up on my playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS4_l0osCx8 .
RESURRECTION
An unexpected morning. After humid stormy heat A perfect sky Cloudless Clear Bluest of blue. A surprising coolness in the air And the slightest of breezes Raises the hair on my bare arms. Yellow sunlight Dances itself into a million shiny pieces on the canal And warms the greens of treetops And the mossy backs of turtles.
Craving endorphins and sweat And grateful for the break in the weather I open the gate to the towpath Laces tied Head down Earbuds in place Muscles warmed for my morning run.
But then My playlist delivers the ancient motet O Magnum Mysterium O great mystery Just as a wading white egret Opens it wings and takes flight over the water. And I stop The coincidence of sound and sight so startling That for a moment I am unable to move Breathless in its beauty.
O Magnum mysterium Et admirabile sacramentum O great mystery Wondrous sacrament. Here is the mystery, here is the wonder Of this unexpected morning: That the clearest of days and the giddiest of suns And the whitest of birds in the bluest of skies Can exist in tandem With sickness and sadness And that the smallest, sweetest hope Can rise from the heart’s sheltered solitude as softly as an egret’s downy feather on the wind.
And here is the wondrous sacrament: The Holy One appearing Clothed in the splendid raiment Of leaves and feathers, marsh reeds and ferns, Transmuting darkness into light again, Despair into hope again. The resurrection Of light and hope and life on this perfect cloudless bluest sky morning.
--Darby Mackenzie Line, April 2020