Let My Words Be Fire
SATB | Duration c. 3’00"
Let My Words Be Fire was commissioned by Dr. Christopher Gilliam and the Davidson College Chorale for premiere performance in 2019. The piece sets a poem titled A Song of Fire, penned by Davidson College senior and choir member Martin Malotky and used in this edition with his permission.
Let my words be fire
that modifies the immutable heartwood
which grows hard and cold
in the hateful frost.
The cold, dead tree
will know spring again
when my words blossom and crest
against the bleak, knotted wood.
No light will shine
but my words
when the sun has left the tree
blind and lonely.
In the silent wood
where the trees stand like strangers
let my words speak sparks and roars
in defiance of the quiet.
Let my words transform,
or better yet, be transformed;
for flames will always grow,
and always too will die.
- Martin Malotky (b. 1996)