Office Hours

for Charles Cadet, cantor, 1924-2021
Antiphon: “Nevertheless I am continually with Thee: Thou hast holden me by my right hand.” – Psalm 73:23.

 

 

6 a.m. Prime

 

First Monday morning of the year, cool

wind breathing hard through the java plum, avocado blossoms,

mango groves & hill-top antennas,

hens cuckling under the window, voices

of walkers in the road crossing dreams,

crickets in the bush, birds in the ficus hedges,

congregations of roosters calling to each other,

light on flowered curtains, beginning… .

Shuffling on waking knees we head to ablutions

& the first psalms of relief that we breathe

in another early hour.

 

The diary guides: renewal of covenant through today’s devotion,

hopeful resolutions to close off last months’ chores,

abandon lost causes, call estranged children

& open new files for new work that promises something more 

than we’ve had before…well maybe…we pray…

 

9 a.m. Terce

 

As you go out, take your mask, remember

to make a holy habit of distance

between sanitized palms & asymptomatic dimpled cheeks; 

counter tops of tables, supermarket shelves, escalator railings 

with memorized beads of public-service mantras;

plague has turned after us 

with the calendar pages of this apocalyptic decade

like some medieval demon taunting exorcists;

town seems reduced, more empty lots, shuttered stores,

tattooed Babylon more pagan with blasphemies & obscenities,

sidewalk chorus a litany of infidelities, neighborhood hatreds, politriks, decease

of popular citizens, over minivans’ soundtrack of hardcore dancehall chant;

 

if your soul longs for the sacred scissor-tailed seagull, salt air, life,

come out to the beach-side food-vendor, get some peas dal

& sitting in the pew of your old car, offer grateful grace, so we pray.

 

 

 

12.00 Sext

 

& when, at the middle hour,

forgetful in pleasant flirtations of lunch-room banter

or snoozing off before the open document

contemplating leaving the office early —

we had forgotten the ominous flags of the Reich on the autocrat’s rostrum,

we had mocked conspiracy theories of ghosts in voting machines

& extra-terrestrial paedophiles sighted in palaces & silicon-valley mansions — 

when we had not taken the buffoons’ narcissisms, lies, lawlessness seriously

& network news comes suddenly of insurgents in the rotunda of the Capitol,

broadcasts images of massed barbarian banners, battering rams, 

insurrection of broken glass, military types scaling the historic architecture, 

plus tweeted rumours of hostages zip-tied under nooses in courtyards,

of trojan horses in the highest ranks of the national guard —

& phone lines are jammed & internet is dropping

& anxiety attacks since we don’t know where those we love are,

& traffic is foul-mouthed, back-roads blocked with fools —

 

when these sudden reckonings come, like all shaking alarums

of the fall of bastions, public or domestic, cities or marriages,

old friends, close family, beloved pop-stars,

may we, O LORD, enter quickly, quickly days of rogation,

lifting fasting prayers against the enemy of our souls,

that we may rise fast above these disasters,

hear us, O Christ, we pray.

 

3 p.m. Nones

Antiphon: “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” – Romans 5:8

 

At the ninth hour, day falling to the multi-hued canvas of sunsets

off edges of islands’ horizons, epiphanies multiply

with an egret’s low swing over browning banana fronds

prancing in the breeze like New Year masqueraders,

with processions of robed grackles along electric cables over the dirt track

between hedges, & add bats darting from under the eaves —

at a ninth hour on a sixth day at the crest of a now-mythical hump of a hill

at the turn of eras, outside a city which still wedges itself into our quarrels,

at a moment distant but too near for modern comfort, 

at that ninth hour, a Man planted the pole of Himself 

over lengthening shadows of the cross-roads of our self-centred narratives

with His scourged, spittle-flaked, naked Body,

& if you will take it, to speak plainly in a familiar trope,

He slung a stone into the forehead of our last enemy

& became our Champion, if you will take it, will take Him —

 

post-modern folks don’t care for our meta-narrative, &

post-truth just launched a coup of mobs against the Capitol;

Rome, her self-serving senators & colonies, call upon their deities

of the Stock Exchange, military-industrial complex, space-force,

conspiracy theorists & supremacist fundamentalists,

to preserve the Republic & so on from barbarians & aspiring emperors.  

In the retreats of catacombs

we commemorate the ninth hour, the vacant grave, the reconciling Man

& rising against apprehensions, so, in faith, we pray.

 

6 p.m. Vespers

“…in this hour of civil twilight all must wear their own faces” – Auden

 

Who walks with us through the dark tunnel of the spent day

whose kind arm surrounds aches & pains of aging limbs

whose gentle words lay to rest nagging worries

about health, children, dwindling finances, dying, 

who meets us at the hour of incense

in the risen light of early evening over Emmaus,

in our verandahs having tea & what’s left of new-year fruit-cake,

in late traffic jams, in a solitary jog along the beach,

in the group keeping vigil beside the hospital bed & its ventilator,

in dark-brown benches of the empty chapel?

 

Say Holy, say Sacred, as final orange light over the sea’s edge

comes like revelation through ikons on stained-glass windows,

as whistling wings and moan of doves nesting under grapefruit leaves

raise our eyes, hearts & murmuring lips to the sliver moon & her companion star,

& say Sacramental, & so, under the first planets & benediction

of cool air, so, let us pray.

 

 

 

 

9 p.m. Compline

“What if this present were the world’s last night?

Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell,” – John Donne

 

& after all is said, done, hoped, confessed

in this first Monday that was ours,

surrender thoughts, anxieties, plans,

to chirping crickets, rain’s rhythms on the roof,

on the concrete footpath, to rain drumming 

broad-eared, heart-shaped tannia leaves,

to the guardian street-light reflected in the mirror,

to the lonely dog gnashing at ghosts of shadows

to the passing car blasting Bob Marley

to your faith companion laughing in her sleep

to the bathroom clock dropping hands inexorably off its dial;

surrender twinge of toothache, tossing leg,

your unmasked, restless, contrite heart — 

 

surrender to rest,

since tomorrow belongs to Mystery

& you have in store mighty promises

of inheritance, of translation, of a never-ending Hour,

so we know, so we have prayed. Amen.

 

 

 

 

12.00 Lauds

 

“..for he looked for a city which has foundations.” (Hebrews 11:10)

 

how can the last way out

not be a dirt-track

moving under a canopy of trees

their dark barks turning white

green foliage bowing over your passing,

& somewhere in all that good bush

angels stroll, you are sure, fluting like ground-doves

their wings breezing above like casuarinas

near the beach-stone edge of Pigeon Island —

 

you gave me this Bible-text card

with that dirt-track road

between green trees

& their whitening barks

when we met in the City of Palms

in that city of refuge, city of priests,

& beyond my chaste prayers

my chastening desire

you pressed my hand to your lips

& left it there

all these kind years —

 

I have kept it in my Book of Offices

all your faithful hours

all this becoming, as they say, one flesh,

& it is, I think

a true sighting

on that sacred card with its scripture text

of the last road I want to walk with you,

the road that goes my love

to the City of Holy

angels fluting like wood-doves

down the last dirt-track of Earth

beside the grace-filled trees 

& their whitening barks.

 

So, with love, we pray.

 

 

“… without participation in God there can be no escaping fragmentation, disintegration, self-alienation…” – Philip Sherrard.

 

Note: After W.H. Auden, Horae Canonicae (1955) and Hilary Davies, Exile and the Kingdom (2016).

The Canonical Hours/Liturgical Hours/Divine Office are times within which the sacred offices of prayer and contemplation may be performed. 6 am to 6 pm follow the Jewish 12-hour day, so 9 am is the 3rd hour, noon is the 6th hour and 3 pm is the 9th hour. The Latin titles of the hours are given.