On This Harvest Moon

(coming soon)

Mixed chorus, divisi

On This Harvest Moon, by Brian Turner

What they don’t tell you about love
is how its waters deepen within us

over time, the sweetened well
blurring the stars when a loved one’s name

crosses the threshold of our lips,
how cool and empty our hands feel

when the fine tips of the brushes
dance on the skin of a drum.

What they don’t tell you about love
is how our bodies house the dead

until we breathe the last words
we carry within, a poem

given to the ether, transposed
into the silence of clouds, then

carried over the sunlit earth
where the rain delivers it

to the green tongues of plants,
the pink mouths of animals

large and small, the ground itself
softened and giving way

to the winding channels,
blades of grass curling

from the weight of it,
a lone ant drinking

from a droplet of water
full of moonlight and music,

the taste of salt on a lover’s skin.

Premieres March 24, 2023