Song Rushes In

Libretto by Euan Tait

 

2. Return of the song

SOLOIST

My days of silence flowed through the fiery light

in the garden that year, where the fruit tree

danced, shedding blossom, as if we’d left

song to clouds of birds in the jewel-leaf trees,

and lived in loneliness. A locked spring,

fear fulfilled. Silence our friend and enemy.

 

CHORUS

Though singers couldn’t meet, our cries sang out,

each to each, sang loss to each other. But now

we awaken, we draw you through a new music

a new time has made, and yet again, you know

you do not suffer alone, music once more

becomes your fellow traveller.

 

SOLOIST

Those days, a magnificent spring sunlight

seemed to consume the branches each day,

and night fell, wings burning, vast bird passing,

returning chick-ridiculous in the tender light

of the morning, to the thin nest of the grasses.

 

CHORUS

We waited. Music stayed silent.    Memory

crowded in, what we once were; in our dreams,

we were little children again, imagining sounds,

picking up instruments for the first time.

In play, we were wonder: what music could be,

high blackcap-trill, our being’s thunder,

the sound of light, calling us to life.

 

SOLOIST and CHORUS:

Music is here again. Here once more

orchestra and choir rumpus, and our young self,

unfinished, calls to the deep of who we are:

 

3. To Be A Friend

CHORUS:

I’m learning to be a friend,

speak in a way we both understand,

but you know already, don’t you?

 

I’m learning to be a friend,

Nobody else can speak as we do,

each to each, knows me as well

as you: friend, we walk together

 

when music is so uncertain, the song

of our life fragile, forming, questioning.

Only this sounds true, sounds right:

your name.

 

4. Music laughs and dances

CHORUS:

In song

life flutters,

dances,

 

majesty

of a life

passes,

 

birds

chatter

private jokes,

 

beak-flitter,

child-wise,

imps of the air.

 

The wind roars,

thunder plays

on trees of brass:

 

Hear me,

hear me!

Sing songs

 

I keep hidden,

imagine,

and cannot say.

 

Song of my kiss

is all you told me,

the quiet cries

 

of all your story:

if I cannot heal,

then I can sing:

 

the song is kiss

on wounded skin,

the ache remaining.

 

Song

is a leap

of fire

 

is heat

of light

in water

 

escaping,

steam

of feral rain,

 

whitewater river

thrill to the sea,

rises, falls again.

 

5. Music reaches out

CHORUS

A long journey, impossible

distance, a great silence

love cannot break through.

 

Yet music

hears our prayers; our cries

are leaping fires at night: once

we lived in shadows, hiding

from all we feared; yet we hid

under the shadow of vast wings

that slowly now begin to rise,

thunder-beats in the sky.

 

Listen, remember our cry:

make peace

with all you have been,

all you are, for all

you cannot bear

is met in music.

 

SOLOIST/CHORUS

How shall I sing? Is music silent,
or voices we cannot hear?

Somewhere out there, a small,

hidden cry of grief,

now loud as wingbeats.

Music was always this:

hear our cry, let our cry

come to you, answer us!

 

We call to you again:

hear us, let our cry

come to you all!

 

SOLOIST/CHORUS

Music is living water,

the spring for our thirst:

we come from hiding,

come to music, longing.

 

Music is many waters,

the gift of a greater love

than we have shown

ourselves; yes, music

 

is fear falling, swept

away. Song sweeps in,

carrying mercy, roaring

through a human life.

 

Music is mercy:

you shall see yourselves

at last, as you are,

as you are truly seen.

 

ALL

Holy is song’s true light:

discovering joy, an utter

freedom, as you promised

in our singing it would be.

 

We are welcome at last

to this kingdom-chorus, in our full

revealed music, our humanity.

 

Euan Tait, late summer, 2020