Portrait of Bach painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann (1746)

The Fugue of Our Discontent 

Bach signed his scores: “Glory to God alone” — 
Soli Deo Gloria. He died blind 
The better, perhaps, to see the glory, 
And eighty years his music lay silent 
Until Mendelssohn saw to do the right thing 
And evened the score. Now all the world knows 
Bach doesn’t mean “brook” or “stream” but ocean— 
The widest ocean we ever encounter 
If we look within and wonder at life 
Which we cannot cross of ourselves alone. 
 
Only music tempers the winds we meet 
Otherwise nothing but random gales and storms 
Moaning in the emptiness we cannot fill 	 
Except with cries, tears, and futile curses. 
We must learn to listen, as Bach recommended, 
For the recreation of our souls,  
Since harmony is more than we presume: 
The metric of God in Man and Man in God, 
Neither existing without the other, 
Both of power to promise salvation. 
 
Soli Deo Gloria

I sing Bach when I’m alone, by myself. 
Thuringian master, most human of all, 
Since most at home with whatever we mean 
When we speak the words Heilig and Seele, 
However alien to them we are 
In our feces of greed, lust, and power— 
In his art I hear heaven, though I can’t see it, 
Just as this sentence, for men, is still a beast’s. 
 
Aspiration belongs to no one place 
People or race—it is the beast transcending— 
But when I consider how my life is lent 
From Black Forest origins next the Rhine, 
Within me I sense a knell of longing 
That transcends belonging to any bond. 
 
I know all men will never be brothers, 
But if I’m wrong here stand I waiting to serve. 

Soli Deo Gloria

The music we play tells us who we are. Not this or that song but the cadence we feel When our mind joins our body in joy We can’t otherwise summon out of the gloom 
We spend our days and nights suffering in.  Tedious if not perilous the tricks We use to escape the inescapable fact 	 We live in the body of an animal We must take care of though it’s bound to die 
Since death in it isn’t music but noise.  Even a gentle death — she sits to the piano And plays Bach for her loved ones one last time — 
Is a violence no one understands, Preach, pray, and pound his pulpit as he will He’s always protesting too much, we know.  Is there then no music in faith, we ask? Not an idle question, this must be answered. Not this or that song but the cadence we feel When our mind joins our body in joy Begets our faith in the music we play. 
Soli Deo Gloria Bach knew as few, if any, have ever known  That the desire of life is a life of desire  —  The desire of God, creative stillness, The mover unmoved, desiring the highest.  For what rest can we possibly achieve That will not deceive us in its apathy?  Unless it is the peace that empowers Our next aspiration to divinity?  Bach understood we long to be like God: We ache to feel complete because we can’t.  But in his music we reach the asymptote And enjoy the fugue of our discontent.  Soli Deo Gloria

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