The words and music of Without You reflect how grief and disbelief well up in us when we lose someone we love. Here, repetitive, lulling swells reflect the sometimes manageable and often overwhelming emotions we move through as we process this loss.

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This piece was commissioned by and is dedicated to the Macalester Concert Choir (Michael McGaghie, conductor) and was composed in part at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony.

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Preview or purchase Without You here.

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excerpt from BLUES FOR KAREN

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". . . God does not leave us comfortless."

Jane Kenyon

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We weren't done talking yet.

So I am trying to call you using the morning glories,

whose blue mouths are open to the sky,

whose throats are white stars,

thinking those tendrils could trellis upward,

hand over little green hand, so tenacious,

they hang on in any storm,

forgetting that the quick slap of frost

will put out those blue lights,

that the seasons will snap shut like a purse,

that this old blue world will keep on spinning,

without you.

 

—Barbara Crooker

© 2008, from Line Dance (Word Press).