In countless multitudes, we’re told,
the awestruck angels lowly bow
and there their humblest fealty vow
as endless light unfolds.
Just there where in infinity
indwells the Holy Trinity,
they near the God beyond approach
and see that which no sight can claim
no tongue describe, no language name,
no ideation broach.
And here on earth one Friday night
we six or seven blindly sit
before the monstrance dimly lit
in silence recondite.
We’ve sung a psalm; we’ve said a prayer
(a breath of incense shades the air),
but no words can the awe impart
how He who in the host inheres
can bear the smallness more severe
that marks the human heart.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.