How Graceful Some Things Are,
Falling Apart (2006) |

Performers:
Abby Fischer, mezzo-soprano
Kimball Gallagher, piano

Excerpts from the poem by Jonathan Breit

This song is the result of collaboration with poet Jonathan Breit and mezzo-soprano Sylvia Rider, both of whom I met in an art song composition course at Yale.

How Graceful Some Things Are, Falling Apart
by Jonathan Breit

How graceful some things are, falling apart:
A spraying pack of cards; the spurt of wine
From an old barrel; or the groping vine
That twists the last wheel off a broken cart;

Stopped clocks, or cracking porcelain; a shirt
Unraveling – threads that show a new design;
A flaking Saint in an abandoned shrine;
A lily wilting, or a breaking heart;

A lovers’ quarrel, and their reddening lips;
A dancer tumbling when his ankle slips;
A hollow pine collapsing on the grass;

A missing child, an empty plate, the rust
On a lost wind-up toy; a shattered glass;
Or looming towers crumbling into dust.