The Hymnal’s Heart

A Year of Sonnets — 066/365

Photo by Taylor Ann Wright on Unsplash

You try the string and carry on the song,
a river rushing down from Heaven, high
and ever far away: we’re strung along
from some uncertain spot of gloaming sky,
the source of every blessing — so we’re told,
a cornucopia in folded space,
invisible to sinners, saints, the old
and young alike — a fleeting word of grace
diluted by the miles of empty air
between the lips of God and earth below.
Though hierophants insist They’re truly there,
the benediction’s hollow: we don’t know
the substance of the song, the lovely speech
forever past our grasp, beyond our reach.