Secular

vocal/piano score

$10.00 per copy (you are buying a digital license)

Text:

I. Mantra

Vitamin D. Sunlight. 
Go outside. Get a good night

of sleep. Not too good.

Not shades drawn forever 
good. Not like you used to.

Open the windows.

Buy more houseplants. 
Breathe. Meditate. (One day,

you will no longer be

afraid of being alone 
with your thoughts.)

Exercise. Actually exercise

instead of just Googling it. 
Eat well. Cook for yourself.

Organize your closet, the

garage. Drink plenty of 
water and repeat after me:

I am not a problem

to be solved. Repeat after me: 
I am worthy I am worthy

I am neither mistake nor

the punishment. Forget to take 
vitamins. Let the houseplant die.

Eat spoonfuls of peanut butter.

Shave your head. Forget 
this poem. It doesn’t matter.

There is no wrong way

to remember the grace of your 
own body; no choice

that can unmake itself.

There is only now, here, 
look: you are already

forgiven.

- from Today Means Amen by Sierra DeMulder (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Sierra DeMulder. Reprinted and used with permission from Sierra DeMulder.


II. Begin Again

if you must begin again 
begin here
in silence

hold your 
hungry self 
in your own 
loving arms

in the clearing 
a wisp
of new moon 
slips
from the grasp 
of the trees’ 
dark inventory

look up
its contour 
foreshadows 
the fullness 
that is to come

- Marg Walker, used with permission. Copright © 2019 by Marg Walker


III. How to Triumph Like a Girl

I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as 
taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. 
Ears up, girls, ears up!

But mainly, let’s be honest, 
I like that they’re ladies. 
As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, 
there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.

Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to tug my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine that thinks, 
no, it knows, it’s going to come in first.
- Ada Limón

From Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions 2015). Copyright ©2015 by Ada Limón. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Editions. milkweed.org