Portraits Of Stockhausen No.1 Poem by Daniel Brick

I see you as one of the Gnostic gods
who fulfilled many promises until
imperatives other than Beauty
crushed them. I can see you standing
in one of your gardens, breathing the air
you selected for this single space,
warmed to your satisfaction by a radiant
planetary sun, not too big and not too small.
Thus, you made all things in accord
with each other. HARMONY was your essential
creative act and having brought it into being
you retired your creative powers for a spell
and turned to sustaining what was there.
Oh, blessed god! You were always thinking
of us, the creatures who clustered beneath
your glory, both what we needed and what we
did not need... What does all this mean?
It doesn't mean anything except that Beauty
grew out of the accord of things, that Harmony
and Beauty prevail in each other's company.
This is your godly wisdom, and when our worship
reminds you of this reality of beauty and harmony,
you chuckle. Oh, yes, Lord, we know of your sense
of humor and it consoles us. Did you not learn
this humor from us? But the Beauty you leave
with us as stewards: it rose from out of purest
water, was transformed by the fires of the earliest
earth, swirled for eons in the buoyant air and
settled permanently in rocks and minerals. You,
dear god, accomplished this deed of Beauty!