Lay Waste

For SATB chorus unaccompanied

Performed by the Harmonium Choral Society as 1st place in their 2017 High School Composition Competition

June 2017, Madison, NJ

Text:
Lay Waste
by Kabir, trans. Jabez Van Cleef

The clouds cry out,

Lay waste! Lay waste!

A gray rain flies in from the east,

Hissing, as it cuts the dust.

Take care of fences and of walls,

Watch the boundaries of the fields,

Lest the streams exceed their bounds;

Now renunciation turns And grips you with its thorny vines;

Let the creepers of love advance,

Soaked in an endlessness of rains.