Poem: Let Everything that Hath Breath

I wrote this poem for Mr. Kenneth Sweetman, choirmaster and organist at Mariners' Church of Detroit, back in 1999.  (Mariners' Church also has another excellent organist and choirmaster in Mr. Kevin Bylsma!)

A word or two about the form of this poem.  I did not invent it; my (Anglican) friend Russ Smith did.  It requires that you create a poem which tracks well when displayed in two different ways:  as ten lines of eight syllables and also as eight lines of ten syllables.  And, each way, every pair of successive lines must rhyme.

So, it is a cramped, rigorous, and demanding form.  You might think it would sound very stilted when read aloud, but that is usually not the case.  Because the rhymes pass each other like a faster train passing a slower train, you get a sort of "beat frequency" phenomenon, which ends up sometimes lending it a jazzy feel.  Anyhow, without further ado, here is the poem, with a photo of the Mariners' Church organ, for a little traditional Anglican "eye candy."

Let Everything that Hath Breath
(for Kenneth Sweetman, Advent, 1999)

Let everything that owns a lung

give praise to God.  Let pipe and tongue

rejoice in phase.  The mighty King

of Instruments breaths out to sing

with pulmonary zeal, to shout.

The organist from his redoubt

commands the pipes like ranks of chess-

men by his hands.  And they confess

what each tongue here would say … but, nay,

the King takes all our breath away.

Let everything that owns a lung give praise

to God.  Let pipe and tongue rejoice in phase.

The mighty King of Instruments breathes out

to sing with pulmonary zeal, to shout.

The organist from his redoubt commands

the pipes like ranks of chessmen by his hands.

And they confess what each tongue here would say …

but, nay, the King takes all our breath away.

© 1999, Paul W. Erlandson