MusicSpoke | Artist Owned Sheet Music™

About the Score

A rumination on new beginnings and the leaps of faith that guide us through times of change, Not Quite Stars was written for soprano Laura Strickling and the 40 by 40 project. “I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can.... Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it.” ― Beryl Markham, aviatrix (the first person to survive flying solo, non-stop across the Atlantic in 1936) NOT QUITE STARS The time will come, as it has done and passed Where songs our eyes sing to one another Must turn kissing mouths to other things. For it is no victory to last It is no victory to stand, stubborn on the path, Refusing that parting of mouths, releasing of hands, It is no victory to refuse our promised lands. Even as the gloaming begins to spark, Our messenger of the dark – Odd little flames we are to dot that horizon line, Even as it begins to drip, tar-black, Air hums that distant lullaby back. We flit our tiny battles, our storming tiny spars, Free to choose our night path We who are not yet ashes, not quite stars, We lightning bug singers, we fireflies sing, Ignite, we leap – and into the night we fly.

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