Hymn by Marie Howe

Hymn

It began 

as an almost inaudible hum, 

low and long for the solar winds 

     and far dim galaxies,

a hymn growing louder, for the moon and the sun, 

a song without words for the snow falling, 

     for snow conceiving snow

conceiving rain, the rivers rushing without shame, 

the hum turning again higher — into a riff of ridges 

     peaks hard as consonants,

summits and praise for the rocky faults and crust and crevices 

then down down to the roots and rocks and burrows 

     the lakes’ skittery surfaces, wells, oceans, breaking

waves, the salt-deep: the warm bodies moving within it: 

the cold deep: the deep underneath gleaming: some of us rising 

     as the planet turned into dawn, some lying down

as it turned into dark; as each of us rested — another woke, standing 

among the cast-off cartons and automobiles; 

     we left the factories and stood in the parking lots,

left the subways and stood on sidewalks, in the bright offices, 

in the cluttered yards, in the farmed fields, 

     in the mud of the shanty towns, breaking into

harmonies we’d not known possible. finding the chords as we 

found our true place singing in a million 

     million keys the human hymn of praise for every

something else there is and ever was and will be: 

     the song growing louder and rising. 

          (Listen, I too believed it was a dream.)