3 Poems for Richard For Voice and Piano By Lawrence Folk (Text: Emily Dickinson)
This piece was written in memory of Richard Taverner, (pictured above), composer, musician, teacher, realtor and our dear friend. I hope you enjoy it. It is sung by Suba Sankaran, and accompanied by Victor Mio. Recorded and Mixed June 5 &7, 2007,by Jim Morgan at Acrobat Music Inc.
I.
That I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved,
I did not love enough.
That I shall love alway I offer thee
That love is life,
And life hath immortality.
This dost thou doubt sweet?
Then have I nothing to show,
(Nothing to show)
But Calvary.
II.
He touched me, so I live to know
(To know)
That such a day, permitted so,
I groped upon his breast.
It was a boundless place to me,
And silenced, (silenced) as the awful sea
Puts minor streams to rest.
And now, I'm different from before,
As if I'd breathed superior air,
Or brushed a royal gown;
My feet, (too,) that had wandered so,
(wandered so)
My Gypsy face transfigured now To tenderer renown. III. If you were coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months in balls, And put them each in separate drawers, Until their time befalls. If only centuries delayed, I'd count them on my hand, Subtracting, till my fingers dropped Into Van Diemen's Land. (Van Diemen’s Land) If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity. But, now, all ignorant of the length Of time’s uncertain wing, It goads me, like the goblin bee That will not state its sting.