Sanctuary for voice and piano

(2023)

This is a song for voice and piano I composed for soprano Charlotte Mundy on her birthday in 2023. It uses a short poem by Ada Limón called Sanctuary from her collection The Hurting Kind:

Suppose it’s easy to slip

into another’s green skin,

bury yourself in leaves

and wait for a breaking,

a breaking open, a breaking

out. I have, before, been

tricked into believing

I could be both an I

and the world. The great eye

of the world is both gaze

and gloss. To be swallowed

by being seen. A dream.

To be made whole

by being not a witness,

but witnessed.