Even today this Earth of loss and pain
still sings the regal music of the spheres.
Her children join together, raise refrains
in harmonies that stand against our fears.
A symphony. We’re clad in scales and wings,
in branches, fur and skin of every hue.
As one, we praise diversity and sing,
build bridges over the abyss. A new
world shimmers—web of life catches what’s bright
on every strand. We celebrate our places,
as instruments who play Earth’s ode to light—
Her music holds us in a wild embrace—
the notes, rhythms and melodies that fling
the darkness from our lives, the more we sing.
This sonnet won the inaugural 2023 True Concord Voices Poetry Contest. It was set to music by Nicholas Ryan Kelly, winner of the 2023 Emerging Composers contest, and performed by True Concord Voices & Orchestra in Tucson in October 2023. Listen to a score video of the performance:
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Janet Ruth is a New Mexico ornithologist and poet. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. Her sonnet, “A World That Shimmers,” winner of the 2023 True Concord Poetry Contest, was set to music by Nicholas Ryan Kelly and performed by True Concord Voices & Orchestra. Her book, Feathered Dreams: Celebrating Birds in Poems, Stories & Images, was a 2018 Finalist for the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. redstartsandravens.com/janets-writing
