"…remaining only mouths"
(2007)

for clarinet and string quartet (21')

Premiere: April 12, 2007 Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY)
Stefan van Sant (clarinet), Patrick Ryan / Sara Ballance (violins),
Leslie Dragan (viola), Colin Ryan (cello), Matt Barber (conductor)

Heartbeat

Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart
which safely exists in the center of all things?
His giant heartbeat is diverted in us
into little pulses. And his giant grief
is, like his giant jubilation, far too
great for us. And so we tear ourselves away
from him time after time, remaining only
mouths. But unexpectedly and secretly
the giant heartbeat enters our being,
so that we scream----,
and are transformed in being and in countenance.

Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

Rainer Maria Rilke