I always remember singing, even as a small child. Voices lifted in song and musical instruments being played were a part of who we were as a family. I became a member of my church choir at the age of fourteen, and continued to sing in various sanctuary choirs for over fifty years.

A few years ago I vacated my choir seat, not because I didn’t want to sing anymore, but because I couldn’t sustain any semblance of a clear, pleasant-sounding singing voice. I still grieve over no longer being able to sing.

However, our family grave site has a stone engraved with the notation to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” which, in our hymnals, is known as “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” Also, there is the inscription, “Gone to Sing in the Master’s Choir.” Here is a poem of mine inspired by that inscription, about mourning turned into expectation.

Gone to Sing in the Master’s Choir

Roses of red, a fav’rite of hers,
We place at her gravesite
Where we read these words:
She’s gone to sing
In the Master’s Choir
And the off’ring she brings
Is the passion and fire
Of a voice on earth raised
In joy and in praise
But now gone to sing
Before her heavenly King.

Verse by Connie Carlisle Polley

Connie Carlisle Polley, 2018-2019
conniecarlislepolley.com