| Ben Bohnhorst |
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My Heart Remembers  Byzantium Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart I will - no, not pray -- I will instead try to start singing a poem. The movement in my heart will be the start of a poem. If I am lucky I will finish it. The groundhog saw his shadow today on February 2 in the year 2000 in the city of East Lansing, Michigan. The sun shone brightly, but I doubt if it really made much of any difference to the groundhog, one way or the other. The week before in Melbourne, Australia, Agassi won the Australian Open Men's Singles Tennis Championship. His play against Sampras in the semi-finals was especially brilliant. He overcame the thirty-seven aces which Sampras served. Years ago I stood in Byzantium, in Aya Sofia. I stood gazing at mosaics, gold and lapis lazuli, the head of Christ appearing where Muslim plaster was scraped away. Turks had turned the temple built by Justinian, later buttressed by Sinan, into a mosque. Aya Sofia is now a museum. What signifies? If the groundhog's shadow and if scoring thirty-seven aces do not signify, what then does signify? My spiritual heart, fastened to a dying animal, asks what signifies. Hammered gold? Yeats says singing signifies. Singing the past, the passing, what's to come. |
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