Requiem While Watering

Requiem While Watering

Margaret Trenchard-Smith
 

August is the cruelest month, here in the Pacific Northwest, the final dry weeks before the September rains.

And this August will be unusually cruel.

More than 150,000 persons have died of the virus in our nation so far.
I’m thinking of two in particular.

I spend hours each day hand-watering two acres of garden, by turns a tedious and meditative task. As I work, a concert plays in my mind: Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, a requiem.

Requiem aeternam, dona eis Domine

This is our 22nd week of social isolation, Brian’s and mine.

It began on March 9th, when my choir stopped its activities.
A concert of Lauridsen’s requiem, set for the 15th, was postponed.

Requiem

The Ides of March. Dies nefas.

I’m watering the fruit trees. The upper meadows, in June hip-deep in grass and wildflowers, are in August strewn with mown relics bleached paler than hay.

Et lux perpetua luceat eis

Our choir was fortunate. Another was not.

On March 10th, a chorale in neighboring Washington State held its rehearsal.
Most of its choristers were infected; two died.

Et lux perpetua

The vine maples need special attention; a spray of leaves is yellowing.

“Bare ruined choirs…”

I listen to Lux Aeterna most mornings before dawn, dedicating each hearing to the dead. I’d begun the ritual in January, before COVID struck, preparing for our soon-to-be doomed concert.

A bee sips from a glistening bezel.

Prayed for my deceased parents, siblings, relatives, friends, others I have known, adding daily to the nomina defunctorum.

Faithful as a Benedictine.

Exaudi!

Now I pray for our wrecked nation, for our world in travail.

Exaudi orationem meam

For the mounting numbers of the sick.

“Thy Name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy.”

A hummingbird is darting in and out of an arc of tinted mist directed above rhododendrons. This goes on for minutes.

I pray for the dying and dead.

Ad te omnis caro veniet

Sunlight on a Japanese maple transforms its leaves to stained glass, its canopy the cupola of a private chapel.

Requiem aeternam, dona eis Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis

Chaos and division rule the nation. Will our suffering unite us?

Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis  

“Illumine my inner being, O my Lord…”

Must I cut down the failing silvertip? It still has life in the upper branches.

At some hospitals in Arizona and Texas the very old and people with expected poor outcomes are being sent home to die. As in Sweden.

Miserere nostri, Domine

In the pond, mosquito-eating fish (Gambusia affinis) are attracted to the cool hose water, then repelled by its current. A pink salamander arises from the muck then instantly descends to join its offspring. I wait for it to come up for air.

32 million Americans are on unemployment.

Stellar’s Jays are pushing the smaller birds away from the seeds.

26 million going hungry.

Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos

The doe Brian named Grey-Nose and her still-spotted fawns approach.
I must become stone, lest they startle.

O nata lux

I think of our now-grown sons. What effects will COVID-19 have on children? Schools open this month.

dignare clemens supplicum
laudes preces que sumere

A fledgling raven is complaining.
The third egg of its clutch, its survival is a minor miracle.

Consolator optime

The seed potatoes have proliferated remarkably.
Soon they’ll be ready to harvest.

A long-desired movement toward racial justice has occurred in the midst of the pandemic.

Sine tuo numine,
Nihil est in homine

In places, good soil is degrading to dust. I am limited by time and the capacity of our well.

Riga quod est aridum

Do I imagine that a thrill runs through thirsty leaves as the water reaches them?

Reple, fove

I pray that we will soften, fill one another’s needs, be fulfilled.

Da virtutis meritum

And I pray for the world’s silenced choirs.

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine

For the dead, I pray for eternal illumination; for myself, radiant acquiescence.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis

Being human and embodied, I may not fully achieve it. Yet I hope.
 
Alleluia. Amen.