O MAGNIFICAT

When the voices are as many

as burning cars filled with boy

sopranos driving themselves

through the holes in ruined

cities, singing O magnificat,

St. Anselm’s proof for the

existence of God; then our

tongues begins to look for

gaps in our teeth to fill with

words that fall silent as snow.

 

The tongue magnifies, our

dentist tell us; in every crack

and crevice a story is hiding,

waiting to come out and frighten

anyone who won’t believe

the sum is always greater.

 

The sum of what, we ask,

greater than what, O magnificat,

there are so many voices every

one of them hungry, every 

one of them calling for help.

 

Fill the crack in the earth that

swallowed the leg of the young

ballerina in Sichuan province;

fill the tears in the veil worn by 

women stoned to death in Kabul;

fill the empty stomachs of children

starving in the wastelands of Darfur;

fill the time between gunshots

where children soldier in jungles,

fill the treble holes in the ocean

vacated by singing mammals.

 

O magnificat, it is human to

magnify gaps between molars,

holes in the ozone, caveat in kisses,

and the holy emptiness of longing.

That is why, after all this time,

we are still speaking in tongues.

© Linda Rogers, April 2009