John Adams

Little Cosmic Dust Poem

Little Cosmic Dust Poem by John Luther Adams for Voice and Piano.

This work features a text by John Haines and is dedicated to Fred and Alexandra Peters on the 30th anniversary of their wedding.

Out of the debris of dying stars,
this rain of particles
that waters the waste with brightness...

The sea-wave of atoms hurrying home,
collapse of the giant,
unstable guest who cannot stay...

The sun's heart reddens and expands,
his mighty aspiration is lasting
as the shell of his substance
one day will be white with frost.

In the radiant field of Orion
great hordes of stars are forming,
just as we see every night,
fiery and faithful to the end.

Out of the cold and fleeing dust
that is never and always,
the silence and waste to come...

This arm, this hand,
my voice, your face, this love - John Haines