A Bell Awakened

Poet/Lyricist: 

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

— from the DARE TO BE POWERFUL choral series —

An ode to the power of  "I can", Denise Levertov's poem pays homage to a poem by Ranier M. Rilke (1875-1926) by invoking the stirring imagery from Rilke's poem and further exploring and personalizing the notion of "vocation" . 

Level: 

Mod-Advanced
Item Voicing/Instrumentation Duration Price Audio View Score Quantity
JS-062 SSAA, piano 3:00 $2.35 https://www.joanszymko.com/sites/joanszymko.advantagelabs.com/files/audio_samples/JS-062.mp3
JS-062D SSAA, piano 3:00 $1.75

Text

"Variations on a Theme by Rilke"

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me—a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic—or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

©1987 by Denise Levertov

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