I kind of woke up this morning thinking about the residents I worked with in the long-term care facility. How their favorite songs were hymns I did not know when I started but have become the soundtrack of my quiet heart. Songs like “Church in the Wildwood” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” They are etched in my mind as the earnest renderings of voices that had sometimes lost their polish with memories that sometimes fumbled a word.

With nothing lost in translation.

During National Poetry Month, we try to throw out these poems as quickly as possible with any thought of revision coming much later (if ever). I got up at 5:30 this morning thinking about residents. . .and villanelles. How are these two subjects for waking thoughts. And I had one more subject weaving through both of these. That I could have just enough creativity to render this:

 

“I’d Love to Hear That Song Again” (A Villanelle for Easter)

 

I’d love to hear that song again,

from a choir that meets once a week,

oh, how He came to save all men.

 

How he came to earth already knowing when

it would be His life that they would seek.

I’d love to hear that song again.

 

How He’d come to carry all man’s sin,

with mercy mild and mercy meek.

Of how he came to save all men.

 

Of the night he spent in the garden,

when the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.

Oh, I’d love to hear that song again.

 

The sweet prayer for passage sent and then

it was only His Father’s will to seek.

Oh, how he came to save all man.

 

How all fell silent on earth and in Heaven,

but not a moment dark and bleak.

I’d love to hear that song again

oh, how He came to save all man.