on Mozart’s Requiem
As in that garden
where the friends slumbered
and the cup did not pass
so, here, there seems no mercy.
Light is confronted,
its white heat split
into dark and dreadful colours,
the storm surrendered to,
the self a vast and echoing cry.
And this is anatomised,
distinctly articulated,
entered so fully
that ekstasis is achieved,
truth at once felt and seen:
that deep, terrible alchemy
in which only fidelity to pain
transmutes it into a beauty
we may, after all, bear.
Sound swells and opens
like grief in the throat.
Strange blossom,
and peace its stranger fruit.
____________________
Lucy Crispin has been published widely in print and online, most recently in Channel, The Blue Nib, Black Bough, The Friend and Poetry Birmingham. Her micro-pamphlet wish you were here is available from Hedgehog Press, who will publish her pamphlet shades of blue in 2020. Find out more at lucycrispin.com.