Introduction

This short piece, written in the fall of 2004, uses a portion of the words from an unpublished 1994 poem of mine, "Silence". The original poem begins with the "smoking or no-smoking" question from measure 22 (and goes on in that vein for verses and verses) but it seemed appropriate to base the main body of the music on an adaptation of the final verse of the poem - focusing on the non-urban silence of the night sky in the country where the stars form silent pinpricks of light in the black sky, reminding us of the final silence we all must one day face.

Words for the SATB Choir