Tempt Me (2005) for soprano, tenor, and piano was written for and is dedicated to
Derek and Laura Chester.
The work is a setting of a love poem by American poet Elizabeth Kirschner. The
gentle, building ecstasy of the text is reflected in the musical setting.
Tempt Me
by Elizabeth Kirschner
I have waited and I am waiting:
this is how it feels to be in love.
With what?
The purple bruise of night
which the moon nests in.
With the soft skin on the inner side
of your wrists.
With the weeping which goes on
deep inside every ocean wave.
Will it always be this way?
Why not? The tributaries
do not flow backwards,
so why should my blood?
It is all meant to go outward
like great shooting rays of music.
Tempt me, I say, tempt me
to taste cloud-melt, to grow whole
in empty rooms, to lift up
the corners of the sky
like the hem of a virgin's dress.
I have waited and I am waiting
while longing to hear your voice
which makes me dream of peaches.