Saturday 15 June 2013

My brother sent a CD of a concert he'd been to - Eternal Night  a requiem by Howard Goodall. He has taken poetry from all sorts of different people from different eras that have moved him and composed songs with them as lyrics for the whole requiem  
Here are three that particularly got to me. 



Track 3

Belief 
by Ann Thorp

I have to believe
That you still exist
Somewhere,
That you still watch me
Sometimes,
That you still love me
Somehow
I have to believe
That life has meaning
Somehow
That I am useful here
Sometimes
That I make small differences
Somewhere
I have to believe
That I need to stay here
For some time
That all this teaches me
Something
So that I can meet you again
Somewhere



Track 5
Lacrymosa dies ilia (that day will be a day of weeping)
Attributed to Mary Elizabeth Fry but adapted by Howard Goodall

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow,
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain,
I am in the morning hush,
I am the graceful rush
Of far-off birds in circling flight.

I am in every flower that blooms,
I am in still and empty rooms,
I am the child that yearns to sing
I am in each and every thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there- I did not die.


Track 13
Spared
by Wendy Cope
(Quoting Emily Dickinson: That Love is all there is
                                                Is all we know of Love)  
    
It wasn’t you, it wasn’t me,
Up there, two thousand feet above
A New York street. We’re safe and free
A little while, to live and love.

Imagining what might have been –
The phone call from the blazing tower,
A last farewell on the machine,
While someone sleeps another hour

Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye
And listen to each other’s pain,
Send helpless love across the sky
Knowing we’ll never meet again.

Or jump together, hand in hand,
To certain death. Spared all of this
For now, how well I understand
That love is all, is all there is.  

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