Shop for Music
About the Composer
Joan Szymko
Joan Szymko Music
Stars in Your Bones
A powerful piece that builds toward a galvanizing, uplifting expression of “belonging.”
SSAA, piano
The opening chords and exuberant opening unison suggests the “big bang”— the singular explosion theorized by astronomers as the origin of our expanding universe. The piano ostinato that follows consists of a 5-note 16th-note pattern over a steady quarter-note 5/4 pulse, lending an unstable, fluctuating quality to the the lyrics: “Earth changes…” As the underlying rhythm in the accompaniment settles, the lyrical quality of the setting takes hold, building toward a galvanizing, uplifting expression of “belonging.”
Text
Belonging
The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected
to stay forever
the same.
Earth changes,
and home becomes different
places.
You took flesh
from clay
but the clay
did not come
from just one
place.
To feel alive,
important, and safe,
know your own waters
and hills, but know
more.
You have stars in your bones
and oceans
in blood.
You have opposing
terrain in each eye
you belong to the land
and sky of your first cry,
you belong to infinity.
– Alla Bozarth
$2.50 per licensed PDF
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.