Stabat Mater
Ice crystals sting
the bare skin of my face
as I shudder up
the steps to the cathedral
and I notice through frozen eyelashes
...illumined
from within...
the huge stained glass windows
The masonry of sculpted
limestone
is clad in gnarled
vines barely clinging to the walls
thick with hoar frost sparkling in lamplight
that shivers a weird
glow through a thin ice fog
and as I heave open
the heavy oak wood door
and enter the hall into a hush of warm air
the murmur of the audience
seems so solemn it's almost ominous
Then the chorus
walks on to a measured applause
They pause briefly to adjust their scores
and as they wait
for the first wave of the conductor's baton
I notice one of the women in the choir
and I feel a strange, instinctive attraction to her
Strange because
she doesn't seem at all like my type
She's quite beautiful
but she looks so clean cut straight
and her make up's made up too uptight
but there's something
about her that holds my attention
some sort of invisible mystique
I think - maybe it's just my imagination
or perhaps my anima's playing tricks
But then very softly
the choir begins to sing
so quiet at first their voices seems far away
as they ease into
the first bars of the old Stabat Mater
weaving intricate layers of polyphony
voices rising 'til
it seems the cathedral itself is singing
as the chorus echoes off the tall stone walls
and in the soaring emotion of the music
I can feel the harmonics vibrating my heart
Then I notice the
woman who seemed so composed before
now her eyes are wild like a madwoman's or a saint's
and as her soprano lifts the choir's harmonies higher
I hear overtones of the angels...and God
Kind of odd for
a blasphemous heathen like me
but there's something about this sacred Art
something that evokes a profound sense of Mystery
and sounds my soul with a sympathetic chord
They're singing
in Latin - something about the dying god
and the grief of his weeping virgin mother
her tears mingling with his wine red blood
as his sacred heart gives out
In this strangely
archaic arrangement by Pergolesi
of a thirteenth century middle age hymn
with a myth going back to the paleolithic
of the dying born again divine son
there are overtones
of an ancient mystery secret
echoing the mystic
past of the West
in a dead tongue sung by living angels
raised by the music
from the grave of the Church
And as the music
approaches the final amen
I look again at the madwoman soprano
Her face is transfigured with emotion
Her whole body is trembling ecstasy
and it's like a
halo of spiritual energy surrounds her
like she's radiating
some kind of secret passion
yet it's not at
all like the usual sort of Christian devotion
She looks more like
she's possessed by a Dionysian madness
© 2007 Gary Lee