I.  Kyrie

O deep unknown, guttering candle,
beloved nugget lodged
in the obscure heart's
last recess,
have mercy upon us.

We choose from the past, tearing morsels to feed
pride or grievance.
We live in terror
of what we know:

death, death, and the world's
death we imagine
     and cannot imagine,
we who may be
the first and last witness.

We live in terror
of what we do not know,
in terror of not knowing,
of the limitless, through which freefalling
forever, our dread
sinks and sinks,
                    or
     of the violent closure of all

Yet our hope lies
in the unknown,
in our unknowing.

O deep, remote unknown,
O deep, unknown,
Have mercy upon us.

------------------------------------------------------------

II.  Gloria

Praise the wet snow
     falling early.
Praise the shadow
     my neighbor's chimney casts on the tile roof
even this gray October day that should, they say,
have been golden.
                         Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
     the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney's shadow
Praise
god or the gods, the unknown,
that which imagined us, which stays
our hand,
our murderous hand,
                                   and give us
still,
in the shadow of death,
               our daily life,
               and the dream still
of goodwill, of peace on earth.
Praise
flow and change, night and
the pulse of day.

------------------------------------------------------------

III. Credo

I believe the earth
exists, and
in each minim mote
of its dust the holy
glow of thy candle.
Thou
unknown I know,
thou spirit,
giver,
lover of making, of the
wrought letter,
wrought flower,
iron, deed, dream.
Dust of the earth,
help thou my
unbelief. Drift,
gray become gold, in the beam of
vision. I believe and
interrupt my belief with
doubt. I doubt and
interrupt my doubt with belief. Be,
belovéd, threatened world.
     Each minim
mote.
(.....)
the ordinary glow
of common dust in ancient sunlight.
Be, that I may believe. Amen.
------------------------------------------------------------

IV. Sanctus/Benedictus

Powers and principalities–all the gods,
angels and demigods, eloquent animals, oracles,
storms of blessing and wrath–

            all that Imagination
            has wrought, has rendered,
            striving, in throes of epiphany–

            naming, forming–to give
            to the Vast Loneliness
            a hearth, a locus–

send forth their song towards
the harboring silence, uttering
the ecstasy of their names, the multiform
name of the Other, the known
Unknown, unknowable:
(.....)

Blesséd is that which comes in the name of the spirit,
that which bears
the spirit within it.

The name of the spirit is written
in woodgrain, windripple, crystal,

in crystals of snow, in petal, leaf,
moss and moon, fossil and feather,

blood, bone, song, silence,
very word of
very word,
flesh and
vision.

(.....)
Blesséd is that which utters
its being,
the stone of stone,
the straw of straw,
                        for there
spirit is.
(.....)
                                                            Blesséd
be the dust. From dust the world
utters itself. We have no other
hope, no knowledge.
                                                The word
chose to become
flesh. In the blur of flesh
we bow, baffled.

V. Agnus Dei

(…..)
What terror lies concealed
in strangest words, O lamb
of God that taketh away
the Sins of the World:

(.....)                                                    God then,
                                    encompassing all this, is
                                    defenceless? Omnipotence
                                    has been tossed away, reduced
                                    to a wisp of damp wool

(.....)
                                                            we
                                    must protect this perversely weak
                                    animal, whose muzzle’s nudgings
                                    suppose there is milk to be found in us?
                                    Must hold to our icy hearts
                                    a shivering God?

So be it.
            Come, rag of pungent
            quiverings,
                                    dim star.
                                                Let’s try
                                    if something human still
                                    can shield you,
                                                            spark
                                    of remote light.

------------------------------------------------------------