"You Shall Be Weeping and Crying"

Cantata #103, J. S. Bach

When the new director of the church choir tells me

You're really a soprano, I pretend not to hear,

an alto at heart, though I'm shaken by the way my voice

can fill that lofty room with high notes thrown out

like a rope from an unsteady boat.

I'd rather be earth and burnt grass continuously

rumbling beneath the soprano's silver arcs of light

astonishing everyone who looks at the sky,

recognized by those with their feet on the ground

who know where the truth and beauty really lie.

I'll settle for being the nearly anonymous leaves

of the yellow trumpet vine at the corner of my house

clarifying the final gesture of that ascending line.

Yes, only the altos can make a desert of C's bloom

in a room of waning afternoon light, make scarcity

seem like someone's knocked at your door with a gift.

I could extend my vocal range with faithful

practicing of ever higher scales, though it's hard for me

to stray far from home, close to what I love.

Secretly, it's the melody I love to sing when I'm alone.

In the shower, wrapped in clouds of steam, I become

vaporous and obscure, gone to heaven and belting out

Amazing Grace as if I know how wide God's mercy really is,

drawing those bars to a bluesy close so I can begin

the Handel aria I've always longed to sing.

When I open the curtains to see myself in the slowly

clearing mirror, I struggle to find my part

in the Bach cantata we're doing, intervals of suffering

offered like a trial to the singer, notes that only make sense

when they're sung with the others, like rungs on a twisting

ladder that suddenly fit into place and I can almost

tell who I am, where I am going-

Still, it's not easy, all those voices, all that breath

raised in a single cry that seems outside of human hearing,

Thr werdet weinen und heulen.