THE HEART OF THE MATTER

10/30/2025 traveling for a bit, wanted to update before we hit the way out

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

THE ROOT OF IT

The MAGNIFICAT is the Virgin Mary’s song of praise to God after one of the Bible’s greatest wonders: the angel Gabriel visiting her with the message that she is to be the mother of God’s son. In his setting composer Kim André Arnesen expresses the feelings Mary must have felt: wonder, devotion, gratitude, joy, humility, hope and compassion. God’s selection of an unknown woman living in poverty to be the mother of His son is a bottom-up view of the world if ever there was one – and Arnesen sees the Magnificat as offering support and hope for all people struggling against adversity or in need of strength. MUSICA CELESTIS portrays the ceaseless praising of God by angels in heaven. Aaron Jay Kernis builds his work around a fairly simple melody which he remoulds in a series of variations. The intensely beautiful and mostly barren Hardangervidda mountain plateau inspired Ola Gjeilo to write TUNDRA, while his SONG OF THE UNIVERSAL expresses unabashed optimism, exuberance and poet Walt Whitman’s unwavering confidence in our deeper humanity – all through the prism of a big, warm, beating heart.

The Moon Is In The House
Con/Jur/d, the time of year when the leaves crunch
in the cemetery

After a lifetime
           labels of escape
saying, You’re THIS
             We’re THAT

Until, like an undead vivisection
our labels, LEFT, CENTER, RIGHT
hold us pinned to the landscape
depressed and afraid of other contour
lines, chortling, raging, falling

into the darkest, deepest depression
when someone suggests other topographies
other altitudes, where all we see is FLAT/FLAT
or ROUGH/ROUGH, a bland comfort
of fear and revulsion, IDIOTS, we say 
a sort of prayer to the corpse God 
and his absent father, 
 
And yet, where there are Mountains
Oceans flourished, on the Uninterrupted
Horizons, suddenly a steep elevation
appears, rising UP/UP

                                  YOU come home
                 and in the kitchen, on the couch
                 at the counter, in the corner, wherever
                 you normally eat, sits the MOON
                 whether WAXING or WANING
                 the immense pressure, is FULL
 
THE GRAVITY 
                 deforms the cozy map
                  erases LIKE/DISLIKE
                  LOVE/HATE 
                                     GOOD/EVIL

I’M NOT HUNGRY.             they say
               and you’re glad, because you
were wondering, their luminosity was erasing 
the border between INSIDE and OUT 
      and the word digestive appeared 
      more than once in your ruminations

I CAME FROM AROUND HERE
              A LONG/LONG TIME AGO
                 BEFORE ROCKS
                                 AND WHIRLPOOLS 
                 GOT COMPLEXIFIED
                          MADE YOUR EARLIEST
                 ANCESTORS

time passes (you can’t say how much
                      how little)

… AND SO NOW
                    YOU WASTE 
MY TIME, COUNTING GRAINS OF SAND
                 DRAWING PRETEND
       BORDERS ALL OVER MY YARD?

if you could, you’d ask questions which
you already know the answers to like

WHY US?
WHAT SHOULD 
                         WE DO?

                 thoughts like a compass rose
                 arise, although we know where 
                 we are, afterwards, when they 
                 have left, leaving MOUNTAINS 
                 as MOUNTAINS, oceans, ponds
                 and dew drops as reflections of

DEPTH

           THEY brought a reminder
           when delusions of separateness
           appear, whichever direction ONE
      
LOOKS/LISTENS there is a 
                                             GLOW

no matter your NAME, PHASE
                    or, CONSTELLATION                                 0

ONE OF US

Much love,

Con/Jur/d, 10/30/2025