The hidden sound, the spell under the tongue, <br />Hints of our truth revealed. Behold, Shema: <br />A doorway opens from a dwelling of despair <br />To speed the fate of birth and teach <br />To wear death’s sudden mask. <br /> <br />The bodies of our ancestors, eroded by disease <br />Unnamed and unconfined. Vital organs inflamed <br />By domestic plague, blamed on foreign clime. <br />Limbs torn by canon, severed by sword, <br />Lives cascaded into waters, in armour drowned. <br />They carried in their recessed minds <br />A fragment of the sound, beyond the language of their time. <br /> <br />The colleges, hunched passageways of stone, <br />The worn and lettered tombs by which the students pass <br />Libraries rebuilt on wooden beams <br />In the sunlight of stained glass. <br />Illuminated minds renew <br />The stunted frames of ancient words: <br />Their syllables extend <br />Towards the hidden sound.<br /><br />Frank Bana<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shema-2/
