Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Stav Poleg's Banquet Stanley Moss In a concluding conversation, with Neilson MacKay John Koethe Poems Gwyneth Lewis shares excerpts from 'Nightshade Mother: a disentangling' John Redmond revisits 'Henneker's Ditch'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 113, Volume 23 Number 3, January - February 1997.

Three Poems John Matthias


Messiaen Received by Angels Singing Like the Birds
(for Kym)

Venite … inginocchiatevi CS
Susanna's answered
by a Garden Warbler and a Kakapo.
Figaro! Strings, cymbal, wind machine, les ondes those
bells bells from Assisi.
L'Ange Voyageur steps from Fra Angelico's Annunciation
with his wings unfurled, his feathers
quinticolored red and yellow, blue and green,
and sings: Cantico della creature cantico
glissando Gerygone percussion tuned a new
Noh-Caledonian: What is your name?
Ondeolivier avec offrandes pas oubliées.
And suddenly a dawn sky of Skylarks. Orioles
and Lyrebirds, suddenly antiphony
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image