Returning
SATB, SSAA, or TTBB Chorus & Audience | 5.5'
Contemporary poet Laura Foley's text for Returning describes watching and waiting for the return of wild geese—or any beloved thing—each passing year. This setting of her poem features a simple audience refrain that recurs three times. The refrain, included here and in the score's program notes, may be re-printed in the program or easily taught through call-and-response before the piece is sung.
Returning was commissioned by Minnesota-based chorus Magpies & Ravens (Curtis Kettler, director).
Peruse or purchase all three voicings of this piece at Graphite Marketplace.
RETURNING
I have learned this:
if you stay in one place long enough
they will return to you.
[REFRAIN:
They will return to you,
they will return to you,
they will return.]
The geese you saw leaving,
their feet rising into dark bodies.
They will return.
[REFRAIN]
All you need to do is watch the sun each day
as it tumbles through the sky
and they will come again.
[REFRAIN]
They will return, floating toward you,
their damp bodies
still trembling from flight.
—Laura Foley
*Note: Text for the refrain is not part of Laura Foley's poem.
