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year composed: 2023 | 6 minutes

I composed 'pentecoste' for a Composition Department , Voice Department, and Harp Department collaboration my freshman year. 

I set a poem of the same name written by friend Caleb F. Stocco. The text is as follows:
 

O lux beatíssima, 

reple cordís íntima 

tuórum fidélium. 

(– Veni Sancte Spiritus, Pope Innocent III) 

When the Father starts wearing red garments, 

and fifty days pass from the Holiest Mass,  

the Whitsun sun shines over a crumpled Shroud. 

There, we breathe in rays of mystical ecstasy, 

colorful powdered MDMA pressed in Eucharist wafers 

that melt on the palate tasting of the eleven fruits. 

I breathe in slowly, looking at the overexposed 

ceiling, at your shiny chest, at your dilated pupils, 

and I remember the feeling of the Holy Spirit 

washing over me like the Red Sea, a new purifying  

baptism, drowning my nostrils, filling my lungs. 

The Holy Fire was like lightning hitting a tree. 

Burning from the inside, I begged, I begged, 

on my knees I prayed to you to fill me up with Light. 

I wanted the Holy Wind to blow over me warm, 

like in the streets of Milan on the way to Church, 

so, with hands clasped in prayer, folded together 

around humble roses, I asked for the cup of Salvation.  

Above me, you flew august like a white dove. 

​

I chose to set music to Caleb’s poem “pentecoste.” I fell in love with how he interweaves three distinct yet interrelated feelings: first, a palpable longing for a spiritual connection with a higher power; second, the sensations of having taken ecstasy; and third, a pervasive sense of being in love. By using these three feelings, Caleb demonstrates how complex and multifaceted queer love is. Such an intricate range of experiences cannot be expressed with only a few simple words, and it is Caleb’s attempt to portray the unportrayable that drew me to the poem in the first place.