Sleep Song (Ann Silsbee)
Voice and piano
low voice (b'-e") - SEA-061-00
medium voice (c'-f") - SEA-061-01
high voice (d'-g") - SEA-061-024 minutes - $5.00/copy
Composer Notes: "The small, disciplined form of "Sleep Song" - nine 9-syllable lines - is one which poet Ann Silsbee explored throughout her intimate book, "Naming the Disappeared." What captured my musical imagination was the rhythm of breathing reflected in this poem, a rhythm of which singers are viscerally aware. What captured my spirit was nearly the same thing: the beauty, power and vulnerability of breath itself, that most basic sign of life.
Sleep Song
What I love is to slip late at night
into David's room gaze secretly
down at the soft mask of sleep twitching
with no flush of rage no pout no glee
just the passing in and out of breath
delicately stirring his body
into a hint of motion by which
I know David is living within
safe to love with my whole watching self
Copyright © 2002 by Ann L. Silsbee. From Naming the Disappeared, published by Vista Periodista, Ithaca, NY. Reprinted by permission of Robert Silsbee
What I love is to slip late at night
into David's room gaze secretly
down at the soft mask of sleep twitching
with no flush of rage no pout no glee
just the passing in and out of breath
delicately stirring his body
into a hint of motion by which
I know David is living within
safe to love with my whole watching self
Copyright © 2002 by Ann L. Silsbee. From Naming the Disappeared, published by Vista Periodista, Ithaca, NY. Reprinted by permission of Robert Silsbee
Sleep Song - soprano and piano - score
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