Tuba Mirum (Wonderful Trumpet)

“Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” This exchange is traditionally heard between Christians of all stripes on Easter. Later this year, I plan to self-publish Voiceless Choirs: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. This book will include a series of poems based on Mozart’s Requiem Mass. Requiem masses are Catholic funeral services and include themes about death, eternal rest, final judgment, and resurrection.

One of the movements in Mozart’s mass is “Tuba Mirum,” Latin for “Wonderful Trumpet.” This probably evokes Paul’s statement that, “the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:52). Handel memorably set this text to music in his Messiah oratorio.

In writing poems based on Mozart’s Requiem, my goal was to poetically interact with the original text. I wanted to write modern poems in my own voice that also honored the spirit of the originals. Below is my poem, “Tuba Mirum,” followed by a translation of the original Latin text by my daughter, Kate McKamey!

Tuba Mirum (Wonderful Trumpet)

An electric trumpet screams 
kind of blue lightning that flies and forks 
through cobweb-gagged crypts,
pine pill boxes, and mortuary flophouses,
snake-hooking the dead from their holes
and raising clouds of dust
as the skull of the earth looks on
in hollow-eyed shock

Horizon to horizon, the high voltage melody 
arc-flashes through the rising dust
and fuses particulate into looking glass,
filling creation with mirror and echo,
snuffing out the stars, and leaving

just reflection

***

Wonderful Trumpet

Wonderful trumpet scattering sound
through the sepulchres,
will gather all before the throne.
Death and nature will be astounded,
when creation rises again,
to answer to the judgment.
The book will be brought forth,
in which all will be contained,
from which the world will be judged. 
When the judge sits, therefore,
whatever lies hidden will be made clear,
nothing will remain unpunished.
What then will I say, wretch that I am?
Which advocate will inquire,
when the just are scarcely secure?