Kyrie eleison with a Southern Accent

Bach's Mass in B Minor

The box sat on the third shelf, left tower. The wood thrush sang again in Chapman Forest until the leaves smoldered out into another winter.

Still the box sat. The thrush returned, fell silent, returned. The box waited.

Plunged into a stiff brown darkness, smothered under the rest of the collection, the muffled sounds of the drill taking the shelf apart filtering into the silence of uncertainty, the box waited some more.

A whip poor will called, a new sound in a southern night, more cold and silence, another bird chorus, a sound of saws and more drills, and the box, placed again on a renewed left tower, gazing out a new window at a mountain.

I looked at the box a few weeks ago. Not yet.

But the right time creeps up silent with a switching tail, catching the watch like a mouse, instant.

With an almost casual reach, not unthinking, but thirsty, I fetched the box.

Bach: Mass in B Minor

Easter was the right time.

The record spun, the needle dropped, and voices, voices, Latin, a haunting, universal, ancient, timeless, pressing sound:

Kyrie eleison

(Lord have mercy)

Indeed.

(With a southern accent…

Lawd have mercy.)

Don’t you too thirst for something special, sacred, illuminated, a glimmer on a dark and winding path? (Or at least something beautiful?)

Why don’t I look more?

Have a listen to this: