A collection of poetic prayers about human connections, the search for stillness, and the mysteries of life and death.
As the title suggests, Belletini's poetry is shaped by the theme of sound and silence. Listen to moon songs, chirping crickets and chanting bees. Experience the silence of love, friendship, snowflakes, and creation. Fifty-four poems in total.
Prelude
Praises
Reading for the Day
Another Psalm 139
During Wartime
Together
De Colores
Slower and Slower
Always There
Via Negativa
War Requiem
Sunday Spell
Worldprayer
In Heaven
Praisesong
Love Prayer
A Kol Nidrei
Mystical Song
Bellsound
First Principles
Creation Story
An Irony for Public Worship
T'hillah
Earth
Communion Circle
Part as Parcel
Question Prayer
Ode to Silence
Spiritual History
Forever Turning
Evolution
Queries
Conversation with Avinu Malkenu
The Rose of Hafiz
Simple Amidah
When to Speak, When to Keep Silence
Everyone's Memorial Day
April
Exultet for Easter Morning
Spring Benedicite
August
Summer Silence
Early October
Election Promises
Late Fall
Thanksgiving
Winter Sequence
Christmas Evensong
Elegies
Morning Psalm
Evening Psalm
Psalm to God
Gloria
Laud for Life
The Hallowing of the Silence
Blessings
Finale
Solemn Te Deum for Peace
Ah, it's true.
When our ancestors spoke of heaven,
they were speaking of this moment.
When they went on about nirvana
they imagined a time like this.
When they sang of paradise,
it was this morning they imagined.
A time where all the mysteries of life and death
are blended in a community of praise,
where the bones of ancient lovers
are given flesh again in our own bodies,
teachers of long ago speaking of love and truth
once more in lives so ordinary they are
extraordinary.
—from "Heaven's Gate"
"Weaving words, music and silence into a tapestry of delight, Mark Belletini spins his magic (which is our magic) ever so gently here. In Sonata for Voice and Silence, he lays claim to that loftiest of titles, impressario of the human spirit."
—Forrest Church, author, So Help Me God, and minister of public theology, Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City
"This is a gift for the spirit and mind and heart. Harry (were he here) would caution us not to use these fierce and exquisite words but to live with them in the silences found in the depths of our souls. Thank you, Mark."
—Laurel Hallman, minister, First Unitarian Church of Dallas
"In joy and in struggle, Belletini’s psalms ask us to engage—to leap up singing, plumb our own silences, and to lean into the fullness of a friend’s final days. And, in each paean, we hear his insistence that we trust the conversation unfolding among us—poet-friend-reader-Thou."
—Barbara Pescan, minister, Unitarian Church of Evanston
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