Harmonic

In space above the sung notes,

another, tongueless and numinous,

made out of sound's high fractions

gathering to lambency,

shimmering over the chord like ether.

No doubt that it's there: the monks

discover it time and again

as the engineer spools back through the takes:

a tone from a place where their breath

took flight to the stratosphere.

It rings at a fine glass frequency

and they know it together even as lovers

know, or as scientists, or as priests –

something discrete and unreachable

as light when it splits

on the wing of a plane in fathomless blue,

or the glint of the last

of a storm-cloud's rain

as the sun breaks through

into the tall air of the clerestory.

STUART HENSON