Featured on: This Ordinary Thursday
Collaborator: Howard Schwartz (lyrics)
Song Type: art song, choral, SATB, soprano, tenor
Associated Artists: Keith Byron Kirk, Dan Callaway, Tom Korbee, Bradley Dean
original poem ©1979 Howard Schwartz
Forty days before the formation of a child
a voice goes forth out of Heaven to announce
that this one will marry that one. And each
match is as difficult for the Holy One to
arrange as was the dividing of the Red Sea.
–Sota 2a (The Talmud)
LYRICS:
The question is
How to overhear
The angels
As they whisper
Among themselves:
Forty days
Before they were born
It was revealed
That these two
Whose souls are like twin stars
Shall meet
And be married
In a city that is itself
A bride.
I tell you
I have heard them
And I have heard the spirits
Of sons and daughters
Still unborn
Begging me to take care
Take care that the nest does not
Burn down.
Somehow
We must learn how to read
The letters written
In the stars that circle
Our souls.
