Climb

When Darciann Ketter commissioned “Climb” for her high school choir to sing at graduation, she involved the singers in a big way. Shortly after we signed the commissioning contract I received an enormous envelope containing letters from every chorus member describing their values, hopes and fears. They also sent copies of their favorite poems.

I was blown away by the vulnerability and courage in those letters. My own sons were in middle school, and I couldn’t help imagining where their own dreams might lead them. When that time came, their job would be to leave and my job would be to let go. I hoped I would be good at it.

The fear of leaving and letting go is all over Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “On Thought in Harness.” At first Millay seems to fault the falcon for its own timidity, but then lets it slip that this reticence might be traced to none other than the speaker herself: “me, that quake at the thunder.”

With this in mind I began the song with solitary, introspective solos, full of longing and disappointment. The narrator’s brave inner voice is ushered in by the chorus, which eventually reveals the truth about the ground-bound bird: The falcon will be free to depart when her human is ready to let her go.

When the time came for my own sons to leave home, I ended up being pretty good at letting go. I had some help in the matter because when I wasn’t good at it, my sons didn’t hesitate to remind me what my job was. And as it turns out, they’ve ended up being damned good fliers.

-Elizabeth Alexander