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