Sing Me to Heaven

I didn't actually compose this one. Jane Griner did, and Daniel E. Gawthrop set it for choir. We're singing it in I Cantori right now, and it's so beautiful that I had to put it up.

In my Heart's sequestered chambers
Lie truths stripped of poet's gloss.
Words alone are vain and vacant
And my heart is mute.

In response to aching silence
Memory summons half-heard voices,
And my soul finds primal eloquence
And wraps me in song.

If you would comfort me,
Sing me a lullaby.
If you would win my heart,
Sing me a love song.
If you would mourn me
And bring me to God,
Sing me a requiem,
Sing me to heaven.

Touch in me
All love and passion,
Pain and pleasure.
Touch in me
Grief and comfort;
Love and passion,
Pain and pleasure.

Sing me a lullaby,
A love song,
A requiem.

Love me,
Comfort me,
Bring me to God.

Sing me a love song,
Sing me to heaven.

Boston in the Fall

This one has been forming in my head since I went home for break a couple of weeks ago. It's still a work in progress, but it deserved to be written.

This morning on my window
An icy work of art
Jacks frosty calling card
Yet by the sun unmarred.

There's a crispness in the air
As I leave the house this morning
There is ice upon the lake
As only cold can make.

The leaves upon the trees
A burgeoning raging fire
Orange, Yellow, flaming red
Beautiful though almost dead.

I love this time of year
When Boston's at its best
The frost, the leaves, the wintry chill
Fall gives my soul a happy thrill.

Now I'm back at school in southern Tennessee.
Yet deep within this warm and sunny place
I still hear the forests burning call,
And wish I were in Boston, in the Fall.

Is There Still Love?

On their first day of school
Two children met
A meeting she will never forget
The beginning.

In a little red play house
Two children were "married"
A memory she has always carried
Child's love.

A huge shiny ring
With a bright blue stone
Now you'll never be alone.
A child's promise.

A wooden race car
A stolen kiss
One summer of purest bliss.
Gone.

The years drift by
Some go others stay
To themselves they say
Do they think of me?

Another summer
A dance on a hill
Darkness not the cause of her thrill.
Goodbye.

A proclamation of love
Met with another
Why so far away from each other?
Unfulfilled.

Crushed by fate
Two young adults
Tired of endless somersaults
Return.

A young woman
With a promise ready
A young man calm and steady.
Is there still love?

Life Music

The strands that form my life
Tangle and mesh together,
Like many floating melodies
Combined into polyphony.

Sometimes in discordant strife
My beings inner weather
My souls song accompanies;
Modulating, becoming atonality.

The music is full of joy
Yet somehow melancholy.
Soaring in its crescendo,
Yet crying in its beauty.

And through some tricky ploy,
Some long forgotten folly,
The musics decrescendo
Comes from others cruelty.

Eyes I thought I had forgotten

Dusk descends on the world
Shadows collect in the corners
The night is coming on
The streets are filled with mourners.

Nobody told me about this
How me it would dishearten
Things unbidden come to mind.
Eyes I thought I had forgotten.

How can he still make me cry
When he is so very far away?
Why can't I just let him go?
Why are my feelings on display?

He made his choice
And whatever his reason
Against my heart
He meant no treason.

Yet every time I think
That I am over him
The feelings all come flooding back
Refusing to become dim.

Each day is touch and go.
Some happy and some not.
I try to forget him in every way.
But find that I cannot.

Trying, Breaking, Fighting, Healing.

Trying
to be just a friend
Finding
it's not so bad
Finding
it's absolutely terrible
Trying
And failing.

Breaking
What little my heart can mend
Finding
I still love that tall blond lad
Finding
that love unbearable
Breaking
mind unveiling.

Knowing
I've no right to love
Unable
To make it stop
Unable
to forget
Knowing
and powerless.

Fighting
Rationality and her shove
Unable
to make the swap
Unable
to sing solo from duet
Fighting
the sense of the aimless.

Wanting
to be rational
Thinking
I haven't got the right
Thinking
I shouldn't feel this way
Wanting
to move on.

Understanding
this is transitional
Thinking
that night after night
Thinking
that day after day
Understanding
that he is gone.

Learning
from this trial
Living
joy and sorrow combined
Living
with other kinds of help
Learning
to be happy.

Healing
finding I can smile
Living
in a world full of sunshine
Living
for myself
Healing
I am happy.

My Song

Darkness tarnishes
The brightness of my song
As me it slowly banishes
From where I now belong.

No one said I'd be lonely
By my friends surrounded
But I've lost my one and only
My song has been confounded.

Is there nothing I can do?
Will my song now shadowed be.
My defenses toppled by this coup
A rubble for the world to see.

Now black night descends
And my song becomes an agony
As darkness with my music blends
I know that I am staggering.

But night is darkest before the dawn
And surly that is soon
And so my song will struggle on
As disappears the moon.