Home
Look to the stars in northern skies
Seek out the lantern in the night
To light the dark with tender brace
Ev’n in foams apart
Heav’ns of silver a-shine with grace
Betake your heart to oceans, wade
This lonely road of watery qualms
To the isles abode
Hold to the iris in your palms
Its petals fleeting, blue and warm
‘Mongst the dismal seas, altogether
To our final peace
Follow the lantern, whence you were
The silver heart will long forever
To sail this song, of home. Your home!
Where your heart belongs
Whence you can rest your weary head
And sleep
Follow the lantern, follow the lamplight
To light your way
Back home
This poem was written as a response to lockdown and the amount of support (or lack thereof) available to the nurses, front-line workers, and students.
It was lockdown season back in 2021, and I just wrapped up releasing my very first Christmas carol (more on that in another post…). By then, the idea of making a virtual choir piece to help those that needed to hear the music has been floating in my head since Eric Whitacre’s “Sing Gently” piece (disclaimer: I was in Bass 2).
So I got onto writing the poetry. I wanted to keep things simple without being overly straightforward in the message, and had envisioned the experience of lockdown like sailing on a one-person ship (with the imagery of those 1800s schooners). A couple of metaphors were thrown into the mix as well - the lantern represents the medical professionals who worked tirelessly in the effort (re Florence Nightingale), the blue iris is a flower representing hope in Victorian flower language, the northern star lights the way, and so on.
The core idea, since the conception of the poem (and basically hasn’t changed throughout the composition process) is the idea of ‘home’ - the line “home where your heart belongs” was in the very first draft of the poem, and I made sure the line stays right up until the premiere of the choral piece.
A year since, and it remained one of my, if not my most, favourite piece and poem to date. A lot of revisions had since been made to the music, but the poetry itself remained unchanged since I finished writing it in February 2021.