Celestial Bird (2013)

Celestial Bird

O Sweet and luminous Bird,
Having once heard Your call, lovely and shy,
I shall be hungry for the finished word.
Across the windy sky

Of all voiced longing and all music heard,
I spread my net for Your bewildering wings,
But wings are wiser than the swiftest hands.
Where a bird sings

I held my heart, in fear that it would break.
I called You through the grief of whip-poor-wills,
I watched You in the avenues that make
A radiant city on the western hills.

Yet since I knew You not, I sought in vain.
I called You Beauty for its fleet white sound.
But now in my illumined heart
I can release the hound

Of love upon whose bruising leash I strain.
Oh, he will grasp You where You skim the sod,
nor wound Your breast, for love is soft as death,
Swifter than beauty is, and strong as God.

^{‘Celestial Bird’ by Jessica Powers from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers
published by ICS Publications, Washington, D.C.
All copyrights, Carmelite Monastery, Pewaukee, WI.
Used with permission.}

This piece was written for VOCES8 as a thank you for participating in a recent CD. It’s written very much with them in mind – their “Sweet and luminous” voices soared through my imagination as I composed. When I read this stunning poem for the first time, I heard a Celtic folk influenced style of music – I discovered after setting it that Jessica Powers had Scottish and Irish ancestry (she later became a Carmelite nun in Wisconsin, renaming herself as Sister Miriam). I have heard her described as an “artist, painting words” – which fits my overt style of word-painting in music. The piece is dedicated to VOCES8 with love and thanks and lasts about 5 minutes.

RP, 28th October 2013