Lines Like Incense

May my prayer be set before you like incense

-Psalm 141:2

Smoke of incense with prayers of the holy ones

Went up before God from the hand of the angel

-Revelation 8:4

I

Those domes of stone are tombs to slow flow and motion,

(Homes to atoms, to Adam’s sons, not one but both forms

Or modes of Being shown in those wombs of human hum)

Will mute most notes and tones, but not mere mite, mote

Or mist of prayers afloat (carrying into rarest air, faster far

Than any meteor, to His ear both closer and more remote

Than our own are), all spoken in humble hope borne aloft

Like holy smoke; for no moat or atmosphere can interfere

With the praise we raise, blessings sing- sin only lessening

His listening- that charity-charioted lift in clarity to Heaven

And who pays Him praise prays a hymn more-than-human.

                                             II

Clearer than water is the clarity of the washed-clean vessel,

Purer than air are the prayers of the Heaven-hearted vassal,

(Near, dear to His heart and hearing are all who ask healing)

Though sounds thrown out through throat or thought alone

Are drawn down to drown- as do sinners who, in droning on

Hope, through their here-not-there, their earth’s or heathen

Not heaving heart, ever to throng even the heavenly throne:

All wrong who could long to approach it without soul athrob,

Heart wrung; none, monk or nun, mounts to clouds by a lung-

Loud mouth, by shouting out with double- or trumpet-tongue,

For only with inner groan can an organ pour forth a holy song;

(Our Hearts’ prayers are as arias or as harps playing in Heaven

Then, or as auras of nine Choirs singing of a divine seven even)

So our every sigh- desire’s sign- will sing out so to rise on high,

While with Heart’s ear we hear, as we silent listen, Love reply.

                                             III

Spare me the Pharisee’s error of mere fair-seeming prayer

For I see with terror I’m their heir… given to that disorder

That’s the restoring of air to air, a sort of resorting to lies

In lieu of truth… in no sense incense of saintly innocence

Since (this is the secret) solely the sacred soul secretes it.

Fouler now than slime, I’m scared I’m that kind of fowler

Who sets the nets, the lime, the snare to my own prayer,

So asleep in soul each word’s no more but snort or snore

Borne by winged horse to old Horus or Thor of the Norse;

Senseless incense to incensed or incestuous gods of stone

Set on thrones, notes of no-love to whore Hera or her Jove

Rather than Hours Spirit-spirited to our Father and His Son:

No worthy chorus or hymn to Him Who bore us and our sin.

Six of those seven sins- mine since the time I was five or six,

When mind, no longer blind, chose what sickens- undid me;

Sometime since five or six I’ve added the last item in the list

(Just lust is left- lest there be confusion) that can make an it

Of some me: often as I’d found I was lost and, all of my own

Volition now, in violation of even one of Ten, I thought then

What I ought- or Honor, or Duty, Conscience or God wanted,

Told me to do, so without further ado sought out Confession.

                                             IV

Many a pagan chorus sung the courses of the Sun- wondering

At that ever-going gong’s far-flung wanderings, songs of lungs

To some idol sunken rather than to the One, our Father’s Son,

Who hung in Human form and Who men long and hunger for:

Cursed worm, or, for us, Word-Who-cures- Lamp, Lamb, Balm

And Lord Who was palm-welcomed, Hosannas-chanted, Lamb

Of God and true Manna Who made man no less than an angel,

Heaven’s Leaven Who fed eleven of those dozen chosen ones;

The other brother, one who lived among them, was devil-led…

One Who, crowd-crossed, wore His own crown: so I mine now;

One, a Son set on a throne for us, Who won wondrous renown.

                                             V

Amid a midnight’s domain of calm in some solemn monastery

Whose own lower dome floats on columns of Gregorian song

Under night’s hollower dome, home to holy hosts (only starry

Ghosts to those who oppose angels and the whole holy story),

Monks from under an hour’s slumber to worship and ministry

Stir, rising to the desiring of Heaven as for asylum from a slum,

Each Psalm lifted in angelic palm to enter an eternal Jerusalem.

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