Prayers Remain Forever

for cello and piano 2011 ca 15'

When I first read the poem Gods Come and Go, Prayers Remain Forever, by the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, I was deeply moved. Although Amichai surely meant to calm and console us by the gentle wisdom and beauty of his words, I now also hear a strain of existential reproach.

Tombstones crumble, words come and go, words are forgotten,
The lips that uttered them turned to dust,
Tongues die like people, other tongues come to life,
Gods in the sky change, gods come and go,
Prayers remain forever.

In my work, "Prayers Remain Forever", I join my prayer to his.

Commissioned by Ashley Bathgate and Lisa Moore for TwoSense
Dedicated to Aldo Parisot