Motet: an unaccompanied choral composition with sacred lyrics; originated in the 13th century. Suggestion: look up on YouTube, the Hilliard Ensemble.* Jewish tradition says that there are 36 righteous souls on Earth, whom for their sake, God preserves the planet and its inhabitants.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Motet II
August 2013
Last night,
I lay with God,
Again.
We made love inimitable,
As if it were the first time.
The music of purity, voices ensemble,
The only commonality.
Afterwards, heaving, sweaty, in bed,
He reminded me that I had already
Written of the motet, long ago,
But permission granted to
Love it, write of it, once more,
As I He, and He, me...
Because after-all, the motet prayers belong to Him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Motet
Nov. 2010
Ce soir, I am prepared, My Love,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen.
The motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.
Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.
These voices doth
wrack my fibers,
seethe and contract,
my internal power plant
implodes, heart attack.
Glorious generations of singers,
O woven voices that harmonize,
your motet is
umbilical to my lyrical,
calming chemical reaction,
I am servant and
you are my server,
uplift, calm and provoke me.
Sing out loud God's
ephemeral, unpronounceable name,
cover me with the fame
of His naturity,
love me with divine kisses,
release unto and within me
the essential oils,
oils by which we breathe,
ancestorally transfused,
oils once called the
blood of the soul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my past harmonies of poesy,
you shared, lost or just deleted,
tribute unto tribulations human:
I recorded, ven diagrammed,
sorrowed tales of souls waylaid,
debts foreclosed, dues unpaid,
tales of non-fictional agonistes,
suffering a tutti frutti of sarcastic
Earthly Delights.
Wrote writs re some poor souls,
Prado preserved,
by threading and dying,
on a cloistered tapestry
woven by Adonai worshipers.
With those selfsame oils,
they painted anticipated memories of
Heaven and Hell,
the ones of which I write,
far too oft.
But this night,
In my customary hour
when inspiration is my only tongue,
in the lean hours after midnight,
afore dawn's orangerie of
morning skyed break fast,
I am risen, nourished and
uplifted by the motet's synthesis,
by what I hope to see,
by what I wish to hear.
For I watch,
porched and perched on rooftop,
in the company of
urban spelunkers and debunkers,
all of us desperados,
differing reasons for despair,
yet together,
a human minion-minyan of ten,
we search Jerusalem,
from the Battery to the Cloisters
for glimpses, hints of human angels,
the thirty six^
ministering to the
homeless and dreamless,
to us all.*
Ce soir, I am prepared,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen,
the motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.
Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.
Reveal, reveal to me the identity
of your ministering angels!
As the thirty six preserve me,
motet me on eagle's wings, and
return us to you Lord,
that we may be returned.
Renew our days,
as they were before,
when the motet
was bright, organic,
in each of us.
----------------------------------------
^www.neveh.org/winston/wonder36/36-08.html
Motel is Hebrew for sweet. Minyan, a gathering of ten (minimum) Jews in order to pray collectively.
In the PRADO , The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch
This is without doubt one of the most enigmatic paintings in the Prado Museum. The left-hand panel of the triptych represents Creation and Paradise, the central panel the sins of modern man, and the right-hand panel illustrates divine punishment. The obscene poses, strange characters and impossible buildings that populate this 16th-century work create a delirious world that anticipates the Surrealist movement.
In my youth, I was too young to know love, for I thought it was me thst mattered. In my old age, I was sorrowful for not having loved enough, knowing that it was me that mattered. Nowadays, I only speak of God in tongues, for now I know but just a few words to speak, woman, human. He or She who has read this in its entirety, will have seven years of luck. Very few of you will, for you have yet to listen to a motet. Should you do so, I will carry you heavenwards on a ladder of these words. Promise.
