the heavenly music floats high, high enough
to catch sunlight,
its pure white patches—
     distant through naked trees—
puffed and fat with trumpets,
or combed into pianissimo wisps.

and it came to pass
that the weary world reached up,
snagged the misty amens,
clutched them close
until puffs of angel song
pooled in the valleys of chill,
got tangled in gnarled branches
making the weary wonderful,
a suburb sublime.

you couldn’t see the fog all around you
but you knew you must be in it
because it rested like a lead apron, a comfort
as you gulped down each damp chord
thinking yes, this is what we begged for.



Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever over its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” verse 2