About:

“Empty” is a text about setting the bar high, and missing it. Most choirs never get to sing about that. It’s a chance for singers to be vulnerable and honest. Everyone has had that experience where they don’t make the team. Their name is not on the call-back list. The test comes back with a C- on it. She says no. He says no. How does that feel? It feels like a bone in the desert – bleached dry, needing water. It feels like a swinging gate – neither closed nor open, hovering somewhere in between. It feels like a bell – calling for someone who never comes.

Text:

I wanted so badly to be good.
I wanted everything to turn out right
in the end. I wanted to go to heaven.

Whatever I thought I should lose, 
I lost; whatever the cost,
I paid it. Nothing was too much.

I worked hard at letting go; I 
learned the art of denial. Wine 
turned into water, bread to stone.

I was the bone singing in the desert, 
the gate swinging on its hinge;
I was the bell ringing and ringing.

- Joyce Sutphen, “Empty” from Naming the Stars. Copyright © 2004 by Joyce Sutphen. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc,. on behalf of Holy Cow! Press, www.holycowpress.org. All rights reserved worldwide.