Kyrie

from The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson

Today’s poem is from a series of poems based on the text of Mozart’s Requiem Mass. The Kyrie is the second section of the mass and has a brief text:

Kyrie eleison / Lord, have mercy
Christe eleison / Christ, have mercy
Kyrie eleison / Lord, have mercy

The brevity of the text doesn’t take away from its profound message: that each of us needs mercy from Jesus and can receive it from Him if we only ask.

My poem, “Kyrie”, and the whole “Requiem” series is in my most recent book, Voiceless Choirs: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs.

Mozart’s musical setting of the Kyrie is breathtaking. Whether intentional or not, its melody is nearly identical to “And with His Stripes We Are Healed” from Handel’s Messiah. Both are fugues as well.

If Mozart was intentionally nodding to Handel’s piece, it would be interesting musical and theological interplay. Mozart’s text is asking for mercy, and his music refers us to Handel’s text about us being healed by the whipping and punishment Jesus bore on our behalf. The cross is exactly where we must go for mercy. Please take a few minutes to listen to both of these rich musical works.

Kyrie

Her eyes—
windows to a room made humid
by the sweat and gasps 
she mingled with another man—
meet the Lord’s

which speak like mirrors

The woman sobs
as the mob lets go of angry stones

Stones and sobs rain on the dust in a psalm 
of gavel-strikes and arpeggiating tears

joined in the polyphony of kissing