don't look for me anymore

This past March, I sang a chamber piece for my graduate recital entitled "Race for the Sky" by Richard Pearson Thomas.  It has four movements, three of which are settings of poems found in the city of New York in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.  This last one is my favorite, I think because it contains hope - hope in future recovery though sharing love with those around us.  It is about feeling the pain, accepting it, and letting it go; about not looking any longer for that which is lost to us, for past happiness in shards of a shattered reality; about the love that pervades our existence and how it carries on in every person who chooses to share it.  

This is what my graduate recital, Songs of War and Peace, was truly focused on.  How, in the midst of the most terrible trials of this earth, we as a people, all around the world, can and will persevere towards peace via loving one another.  For there is no way to operate with love without also living compassionately, honestly, and peacefully.  I hope and pray that these are the traits we work towards cultivating in both ourselves and in future generations.

don't look for me anymore - Graduate Recital
with the incomparable Mai Linh Pham (piano) and Katie von Braun (violin)

"don’t look for me anymore

it’s late and you are tired

your feet ache standing atop the ruins of our twins

day after day searching for a trace of me

don’t look for me anymore

your eyes are burning red

your hands cut bleeding sifting through rock

day after day searching for a trace of me

it’s my turn, I’m worried about you

watching as you sift through the ruins of what was

day after day in the soot and the rain

I ache in knowing you suffer my death

don’t look for me anymore

hold my children as I would

hold my sisters, hold my brothers

hold my children for me

since I can’t bring them up with the same

love you gave me

I’ll rest assured

you’re watching my children

it’s late and you’re tired

go home and rest

and don’t look for me anymore"

- by Alicia Vasquez