The French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) created one of the most famous classical music masterpieces to emerge from World War II while he was a prisoner of war in a Nazi camp in Görlitz. This piece was first performed in the camp, in 1941, by three other prisoner musicians. Quatuor pour la fin du temps (A Quartet for the End of Time) is a piece deeply rooted in faith, and the Book of Revelation specifically. Messiaen wrote a preface explaining each movement, some of which I quoted in the poem (trans. Anthony Pople). In early 2025, I attended a performance of the quartet, which I had never before heard live. The time of this music and all its colors is made new again, repeating its promise—not just of grief, but of art.
“Liturgie de cristal”
Between three and four in the morning, the awakening of birds: a solo blackbird or nightingale improvises, surrounded by a shimmer of sound (Messiaen)
Again, the book of peace is sealed.
The first lock is a bird’s voice.
There’s always a bird, but it’s been a year
two. three. unending
silence of birds—but not of sirens—
sirence.
Forbidden, you bring
this whirling harmony
down a staircase of a building
whose stones outlived everything.
At the bottom of the ancient mikveh
bones—wing bones of birds
that thought they’d drink themselves whole
down here, in ancient dark
in ancient dark. The crystal
you dreamt of, in a different war: it’s not
a crystal—just damp
sandstone
you could lick it: if you had a tongue,
you’d lick
salt from every wound
“Abîme des oiseaux”
The abyss is Time with its sadness, its weariness. The birds are the opposite to Time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant songs. (Messiaen)
I, bird
had Word
I
had voice once. Now, very slowly
v e r y
s l o w l y
I climb up from silence
wings bent
damp stone under my tongue
minerally—dust—
a bittersweetness
of death digested by millennia.
Rainbows need the brilliance of rain.
“Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes”
Music of stone, formidable granite sound; irresistible movement of steel, huge blocks of purple rage, icy drunkenness. (Messiaen)
Turns out, above
storms shredded earth, storms uprooted
every tree, tore down the nests, electrical poles,
towers of salt and granite. The storms
wailed, prevailed, unrepentant, unrestrained
huge blocks of rained rage
and shrapnel, carried along
this music of desolation: the fragile bones
of an ancient bird
risen from nonbeing:
my fragility is rage
my fragility is a formidable sound
of sandstone swept up
The seal
is broken. Open your eyes
emergent to breathe
“Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du temps”
In my dreams, I hear and see ordered chords and melodies, known colors and shapes; then, after this transitional stage, I pass through the unreal and suffer, with ecstasy, a tournament (Messiaen)
Return, return—but I don’t know when this shrill thrill
will end; sirence
wailed stone
deluge
relentless raindrops fall slant
hammering rainbows out of these bones
hammering out possibility
not the future—that was squandered long ago:
no, this time
of suffering: a clarinet
a violin
a cello an existence:
despite it all,
a humanity.
Remember
this movement: emergent as breathed rainbows
from the apocalypse of now
a defiance of ecstasy
rising rising from the smoke and rubble
s l o w l y
wailing itself up to God
R.B. Lemberg (they/them) is a queer, bigender immigrant from Ukraine to the US. R.B. is an author of six books of speculative fiction and poetry, an academic, and a translator from Ukrainian and Russian. R.B.’s work has been shortlisted for the Le Guin Prize for Fiction, Nebula, Locus, Ignyte, World Fantasy, and other awards. You can find R.B. on Instagram at @rblemberg, Bluesky at @rblemberg.bsky.social, and at their website rblemberg.net.
