Out of My Deeper Heart (2015) by Colin Eatock

The poem “Out Of My Deeper Heart” is from Kahlil Gibran’s 1920 collection, The Forerunner. In it, the author seems to question the capacity of humans to fully understand the universe because we are completely enveloped in the world we inhabit. Only by stepping outside of our world and looking into our “deeper hearts” can we achieve the perspective needed to know what is true and real.

I was drawn to this text (which I have adapted for my use) by the image of the rising bird, represented in this setting by the solo cello. The florid cello part is contrasted with a simpler, chorale-like texture in many of the choir’s passages.

It is performed here by the Capital Chamber Choir of Ottawa, Jamie Loback conducting, with cellist Erin Joyce.

TEXT
Out of my deeper heart, a bird rose and flew skywards.
Higher and higher did it rise, yet larger and larger did it grow.
At first it was like a swallow, then a lark, then an eagle, then as vast as a spring cloud, then it filled the starry heavens.
O my faith, my untamed knowledge.
How shall I turn this sea within me into mist?
How can a prisoner within the temple behold its golden domes?
How shall the heart of a fruit be stretched to envelope the fruit also?
O my faith, I am in chains behind these bars of silver and ebony, I cannot fly with you.
Out of my heart you rise skyward, it is my heart that holds you, and I shall be content.