Evensong

Evensong

Esther Van Dyke

The thundering purple chords of the organ - rise
Melding in the green-glass light of late afternoon.
Voices, lifting from the dark roots,
hold like feathers against the gothic arches.
“Arise, arise … you numberless infinities of souls…”
Patterns of Psalms open nostalgia in ancient rhythms,
and still the chords grow
as one great oak of sound –
invisible but filled with ancient power.
And you, my child,
growing inside your own cathedral
its arches not of stone, but of human bone.
You, lifting your arms to echo the great surge of chords,
you, holding aloft unseen fingers
trembling in harmony to the organ
arise, arise, one of all these infinities of souls.
Be a voice of movement
even as these children’s voices sing you
to holy ecstasy.

---

Esther Van Dyke
Poet & Writer

Esther holds a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Chicago. She contributed to the Smart Museum of Art’s exhibition catalogue Classicisms among other scholarly publications. She is making her poetry debut in Ekstasis. You can find more of her work at: https://evandyke1729.substack.com/

Photography by Feyza Yildirim