The Procession Poem by Daniel Brick

INORI: Adorations for Two Soloists and Large Orchestra
by Karlheinz Stockhausen

Is there a threshold you and I
can cross to enter the soul-silence
deep within the music of INORI?
Or does my saying this open a doorway
where moments before was a wall?

I have a burden of questions, a tangle
of anxieties I bear in my being
like the bones jostling my flesh.
And then there is the blood, so misunderstood
over the centuries. Must it really be shed?

Some claim there are angels among us
who account for the good will we encounter.
Others are skeptical but hopeful. But I?
I reach out to you, but my hands
flutter helplessly in empty air.

I see our whole procession as with
disembodied sight: you and I and all these
adorants walk slowly, heads bowed
or heads raised. There is little difference
between the two postures. The music reassures us.

Those who bow their heads in humility
are saying, I know I am not alone,
there is one who counts every breath I take.
Those who raise their heads in elation
are saying, You are near, Companion of my Fate.

I first heard INORI in dark winter, I was
the sole prisoner in a prison of my own making.
But the music was my reprieve. The second time
has been the rest of my life, as the music
loops and spirals, playing without end.

Our procession loops and spiral, too.
We were all born of the same father
but our mothers vary. We talk at length
about the mother's milk that made
us different, and then pray to the father,

who makes us one. In the music someone
shouts, HU, and that fulfills
our deep listening. We know what
we know because before us looms the Threshold...
When I stretch out my hand, your hand clasps mine.