| Easter Eve 1945 (excerpt) Wary of time O it seizes the soul tonight I wait for the great morning of the west confessing with every breath mortality. Moon of this wild sky struggles to stay whole and on the water silvers the ships of war. I go alone in the black-yellow light all night waiting for day, while everywhere the sure death of light, the leaf�s sure return to the root is repeated in million, death of all man to share. Whatever world I know shines ritual death, wide under this moon they stand gathering fire, fighting with flame, stand fighting in their graves. All shining with life as the leaf, as the wing shines, the stone deep in the mountain, the drop in the green wave. Lit by their energies, secretly, all things shine. Nothing can black that glow of life; although each part go crumbling down itself shall rise up whole. Now I say there are new meanings; now I name death our black honor and feast of possibility to celebrate casting of life on life. This earth-long day between blood and resurrection where we wait remembering sun, seed, fire; remembering that fierce Judean Innocent who risked every immortal meaning on one life. Given to our year as sun and spirit are, as seed we are blessed only in needing freedom. Now I say that the peace the spirit needs is peace, not lack of war, but fierce continual flame. For all men: effort is freedom, effort�s peace, it fights. And along these truths the soul goes home, flies in its blazing to a place more safe and round than Paradise. Night of the soul, our dreams in the arms of dreams dissolving into eyes that look upon us. Dreams the sources of action, the meeting and the end, a resting-place among the flight of things. |
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| The first was �Easter Eve 1945�, a big, dark and thoughtful aria from his forthcoming opera Doctor Atomic: much like the nocturnal monologues in the last act of his Nixon in China, beautifully voiced by McDonald. We missed not a word of the text, a poem by the late Muriel Rukeyser. (Review of Sneak Preview-before the Oct 1 Premier of Doctor Atomic) |
| Nixon in China - Samples |