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Soli Deo Gloria

Dear greatest that there ever was, tell me

how days felt, working as you always did,

while closeted away in your study,

producing perfect work, while always hid?

How did you hide thus willfully like so?

You shaded all your notice, and let speak

the work alone—’for God alone’ you sow.

The holiest work from the utmost meek.

Yet everyone who knows knows your name first:

you are primeval in memoria.

“Composed by J.S. Bach,” is first rehearsed

before your “Soli Deo Gloria”.

But is that as it should be? Jesu’s joy

itself is in rewarding such a boy.

~~~

First phrase, repeat it, then a little more,

then wrap it with a coda, short and sweet.

Plain first, that’s what development is for:

and then a simple ending makes it neat.

I think that’s what the best teachers all did,

instead of diving down the rabbit-hole.

Instead, they kept complexity well hid,

while hinting at its flavor, but not whole.

That leaves the listener allowed to learn

himself what textures that the thing has got.

Man loves a thing much more that he must earn,

at least when some is given—and some not.

You could have made it much more clear; but well,

I rather like the climb to heav’n from hell.