by Jeffrey Essmann

As in a dark and empty room
The psalm within me rattles round:
Not quite the silence of the tomb,
Yet someplace unattuned to sound;
Where sonance drifts and bumps against a wall
And meaning can’t sustain its wherewithal.

Along the prayerful lines, my eyes
Discern each word, drop its disguise,
Each syllable a tiny ghost
Prepared to claim me as its host
To haunt my darkness with a light divine
And make of human emptiness a shrine.

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, The Society of Classical Poets, Amethyst Review, Agape Review, America Magazine, U.S. Catholic, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, Edge of Faith, Pensive, 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.