wait till tonight

Wait Till Tonight is a song for solo voice, setting a poem by Bill Knott.

Sometimes a dream will show me
the words I need to begin and end and
then take them away and leave just one
word or, like last night, three or four:
“the arms of care.” That’s all. There
were lots more but they vanished when
my eyes opened; they were of course
the words I need here now to justify
this. How can I forgive myself for
forgetting them, forgetting that which
might have made me whole for a while
holding you all in my arms of care?

Wait Till Tonight was written in December 2023 at the MacDowell Colony as the closing number in a song cycle of the same name, setting poems of Bill Knott, The cycle was commissioned by the Copland House, with support from the New York State Council on the Arts and Frederick and Alexandra Peters, and premiered by Lucy Fitz-Gibbon, soprano, and Michael Boriskin, piano.

Wait Till Tonight is 22 December in my ongoing project A Book of Days, and you can hear my own recording of the piece there. Plunge, Peace,  Dream Amid Bed-woods, and First Sight are the other songs in the cycle.

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