New Poem: The Incense Rises and Gathers

Celebrating National Poetry Month

I went back to my notebook this week. I mentioned previously that I have a notebook in which I will jot down ideas to come back to later. Usually it's an idea for a poem, sometimes it's an idea for an essay.  I’ve been using National Poetry Month as an impetus to go back to those notes and work on those ideas that have been lying dormant on the page.  I clearly remember the Sunday almost a year ago when I came home and wrote “The incense rises and gathers” at the top of the page. My project this week has been to fill out the rest of the page, using that one phrase as the launching point, attempting to capture what I felt on that day.

The Incense Rises and Gathers

There comes a time

When the heart is drawn

To that sacred space

Where all thoughts and pretensions

Fall away like yesterday’s garments.

To a place made sacred

By the gathering of pilgrims over time

Who come with purpose and by habit

Bringing their notions and desires.

Some come with ideas,

Some come with agendas,

But the space is made holy

By the unadorned longing

Of many souls

On their separate journeys.

Their paths converge

Into sacred space.

Candles, bells,

Hymns and ritual words

Mark the paths of past souls.

Yet in that sacred moment

Even these trappings fall away.

The incense rises and gathers

Forming a misty tier –

Suspended in the moment

Yet constantly moving and changing.

In that moment

The sacred space unfolds.

No sound

No thought

No movement

Only the incense rising and gathering.

A brief rest from all endeavor

Welcoming the soul,

Giving meaning to the music,
Giving purpose to the work that follows.

In a brief moment of quiet

With all souls gathered  

The sacred space opens,

Potent as that rest in Handel’s Messiah.

A silent moment before the Hallelujah.

                               ~ Charles Kinnaird

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