"Amazing Grace" As Heard In Various Venues, Troy, New York

It is undeniable, when in the embrace of the great pipe organ

At the venerable old Episcopal church on Third Street,

Or wholly encircled by Tiffany-issue stained glass

At St. Joe’s in South Troy (ostensibly the “ironworker’s church”,

But gifted with its invaluable windows

Through a mixture of noblesse oblige, piety,

And a certain venal pride)

That there is a presence, a corporeality when the tune rises

From the pipes, be they iron or wholly human in origin,

Which is steadfast and implacable in the certitude of faith.

 

I’d heard the tune on another occasion,

Some half-dozen blocks north of the gaggle of churches,

Emanating from a squat, red-brick edifice

Which seemed a bit unsure of its own solidity,

As if the trust placed in mortar and block

Was somehow a bit presumptuous.

The voices were reedy, a tad threadbare and careworn,

And the accompaniment was unprepossessing

(A single guitar, perhaps, or an ancient and wobby Casio

Rescued from the beyond by some kindhearted DPW worker)

And, though the voices were pitchy

And the harmonies a half-step or so amiss,

One hopes that it would constitute an acceptable offering,

Even not having fully shed the cloak of reticence

Which can be so difficult to unclasp on the road to devotion.

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

A poem of differences but still a poem of atmsopheres. And I am not taken in by the fact that this is wholly about church music.
your powers of description are rivalled by none. No-one comes even close.