Composed in 1992, for a small a cappella choir, on a poem by e e cummings, no. 3 from 95 Poems (1958)
* * *
now air is air and thing is thing:no bliss
of heavenly earth beguiles our spirits,whose
miraculously disenchanted eyes
live the magnificent honesty of space.
Mountains are mountains now;skies now are skies
and such a sharpening freedom lifts our blood
as if whole supreme this complete doubtless
universe we’d(and we alone had)made
-yes;or as if our souls,awakened from
summer’s green trance,would not adventure soon
a deeper magic:that white sleep wherein
all human curiosity we’ll spend
(gladly, as lovers must)immortal and
the courage to receive time’s mightiest dream
© e e cummings