(2022)

Duration: ca. 7:00

For mixed chorus a cappella (SATB)

First performance given by Junger Kammerchor Mannheim @St. Josef, Mannheim on 11 December 2022.

Rehearsal tracks for all voices are available.

I dawned full length sleeves over the empty cartons of my enjoyed flesh - this morning - overflowing in deep-whispered carnal snarls, with supple breath, and my gut on a fierce prowl, I began sniffing the air for direction to that pleasure vein, the gold vein deep underground that I know must be somewhere close, under my nose, maybe even, in my bones.

Sure, dark. Sure, vast. but It keeps whispering. I was able to take a deep breath, staring at the impasse, the rock wall that formed in front of me when I commanded my dreams appear. Arriving first as vapor, then an impasse, they revealed themselves not so much cunning as wounded and offered redirection. Full stop.

I looked. Deeply. And stayed.

I can turn around. or. I can sit right here. Humbly and with the ground humming through me, I can listen. It’s still whispering. I thought about that reality without trying to dig, like I do, for all the chain reactions that brought me this moment.

(——)

If there was an arrow in an open field, out of all the experience to be had, I would find that sharp edge and stick myself with it. I ran out of dandelion wishes, out of astrological predictions and now I am here, softening into the ground, wondering how long patience takes to deliver important messages… When that wounded carrier pigeon will come back to me, inhabit me with my soul’s message and grow me into flowers, then will you appear?

(Hope Littwin)