1. How
Myles K. Glancy, baritone

How can we go on, knowing the end
of the story?

—Barbara Crooker, excerpt from “Some Fine Day,” The Pittsburgh Quarterly, 2007.

2. However Difficult

However difficult you think it might be,
it is yours, this life,
even the failures
are yours,
even the garden, though it be unkempt,
is yours.

—Laura Foley, excerpt from “Autumn Musings,” Mapping the Fourth Dimension, 2006.

3. To See It

We need to separate to see
the life we’ve made.
We need to leave our house
where someone waits for us, patiently,
warm beneath the sheets.
We need to don a sweater, a coat, mittens,
wrap a scarf around our neck,
stride down the road,
a cold winter morning,
and turn our head back, to see it—perched
on the top of the hill, our life
lit from inside.

—Laura Foley, from Syringa, 2007.

5. Requiescat
Allegra Bandy, alto

Let us go, let go with the few roots
you have left clinging to this earth,
pull free, like the clean snap of a carrot
or radish, let us go, shake off this dirt,
let go, let go of your family, their story
hasn't been told, yours is already written,
let go of the world, its sweetness and sorrow,
let go of your friends, we will cry, yes,
but we will not forget you, let go,
let go your fierce will and stubbornness,
it served you well, now let it go,
your courage will remain, let your daughters
become women, your husband lie in his bed of
pain,
your long journey is over, theirs is beginning,
let us go, become spirit and light, spring rain,
fly away from this prison of bone, let go,
wait for us, we'll talk again later,
I am here by the phone, waiting for the call,
for this long suffering to be over,
let it go, your work is done,
soon we will bring you to the river,
bring your ashes to the current, let them flow
free,
earth, fire, cinders, rain, wait for us
on the other side of the river, let us go.

—Barbara Crooker, from The White
Poems, 2001.

6. Knowing the end
Laura Curlin, soprano
Eryka Raines, alto
Jeremy Davidson, baritone

How can we go on, knowing the end of the story?

—Barbara Crooker

7. Sometimes Peace Comes
Abbey Hendrix, soprano

Sometimes peace is like this:
endless and gentle and soft
and no compulsion to go
anywhere. And even the fire
you walked through,
even the trail of ashes
is gone, not even a memory
in your heart, and even the sun is still,
unmoving and quiet,
and you have stepped into
a place beyond time,
beyond sadness and form.
A wide, high plain
where in the endless, deep silence
you find out what it is, what it is,
and your part in it.

—Laura Foley, from Syringa, 2007.

Following the death of a loved one, contemporary poet Barbara Crooker writes, "How can we go on / knowing the end of the story?" How to Go On answers this question in eight movements that range from questioning and doubt (“How”) to introspection (“Relinquishment”) to ultimate acceptance of our own mortality (“When at Last”). Threading solo voices in and out of the choral texture, How to Go On asks how we each confront our own mortality, and how, in the face of that knowledge, we can bring quiet grace back into our daily lives. Ultimately, this work finds beauty, catharsis, and solace in the words of three living poets: Crooker, Amy Fleury, and Laura Foley.