Selections from

“Considering Matthew Shepard”

by Craig Hella Johnson

presented by the Master Singers of Worcester

Click on the links below for more information

Staff biographies: Artistic Director Ed Tyler & Pianist Mark Bartlett
T&G interview with Ed Tyler: MSW presents ‘Considering Matthew Shepard’ 25 years since his death
“Introduction” from OCTOBER MOURNING: A SONG FOR MATTHEW SHEPARD by Lesléa Newman
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Thanks to our partner organizations!
Text authors and publication credits

 

Ordinary Boy

Ordinary boy, ordinary boy, ordinary boy…
Born in December in Casper, Wyoming,
to a father, Dennis, and a mother, Judy
Then came a younger brother, Logan.
His name was Matthew Wayne Shepard.
And one day his name came to be known around the world. 
But as his mother said, “You knew him as Matthew. To us he was Matt.” 

He went camping, he went fishing, even hunting for a moose.
He read plays and he read stories and especially Dr. Seuss.
He wrote poems with illustrations for the neighbors on the street
And he left them in each mailbox till he learned it was illegal
He made friends and he wore braces and his frame was rather small
He sang songs his father taught him…
Frere Jacques… Row Row Row Your Boat… Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…

He was my son, my first-born, and more.
He was my friend, my confidant, my constant reminder
of how good life can be — and… how hurtful.
Matt’s laugh, his wonderful hugs, his stories…

Matt writes about himself in a notebook:
I am funny, sometimes forgetful and messy and lazy.
I am not a lazy person though.
I am giving and understanding. And formal and polite.
I am sensitive. I am honest. I am sincere. And I am not a pest.
I am my own person. I am warm.
I want my life to be happy and I want to be clearer about things.
I want to feel good.
I love Wyoming… I love Wyoming very much…
I love theatre, I love good friends, I love succeeding, I love pasta,
I love jogging, I love walking and feeling good.
I love Europe and driving and music and helping
and smiling and Charlie and Jeopardy
I love movies and eating and positive people and pasta and driving and walking and jogging and kissing and learning and airports and music and smiling and hugging and being myself
I love theatre! I love theatre! And I love to be on stage!

Such an ordinary boy living ordinary days in an ordinary life so worth living
He felt ordinary yearning and ordinary fears with an ordinary hope for belonging

(Born to live this ordinary life)

Just an ordinary boy living ordinary days with extraordinary kindness extraordinary laughter extraordinary shining
extraordinary light and Joy, Joy and light.
I love, I love, I love… Ordinary boy.

We Tell Each Other Stories

We tell each other stories so that we will remember
Try and find the meaning in the living of our days
Always telling stories, wanting to remember
Where and whom we came from
Who we are
Sometimes there’s a story that’s painful to remember
One that breaks the heart of us all
Still we tell the story
We’re listening and confessing
What we have forgotten
In the story of us all
We tell each other stories so that we will remember
Trying to find the meaning…
I am open to hear this story about a boy, an ordinary boy
Who never had expected his life would be this story,
(could be any boy) I am open to hear a story
Open, listen. All.

The Fence (before)

Out and alone on the endless empty prairie 
The moon bathes me, the stars bless me,
the sun warms me, the wind soothes me, 
Still, still, still… I wonder
Will I always be out here exposed and alone?
Will I ever know why I was put (here) on this earth?
Will somebody someday stumble upon me?
Will anyone remember me after I’m gone?
Still, still, still . . . I wonder.

The Fence (That Night)

Most noble evergreen with your roots in the sun:
You shine in the cloudless sky of a sphere no earthly eminence can grasp,
You blush like the dawn, you burn like a flame of the sun.

I held him all night long
He was heavy as a broken heart
Tears fell from his unblinking eyes
He was dead weight yet he kept breathing 
He was heavy as a broken heart
His own heart wouldn’t stop beating
The cold wind wouldn’t stop blowing
His face streaked with moonlight and blood
I tightened my grip and held on
The cold wind wouldn’t stop blowing
We were out on the prairie alone
I tightened my grip and held on
I saw what was done to this child
We were out on the prairie alone
Their truck was the last thing he saw
I saw what was done to this child
I cradled him just like a mother

Most noble evergreen, most noble evergreen, your roots in the sun . . .

Their truck was the last thing he saw
Tears fell from his unblinking eyes
I cradled him just like a mother
I held him all night long

Most noble evergreen . . .

Fire of the Ancient Heart

What have you done? 
Hark, thy brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.

Called by this candle
Led to the flame
Called to remember
Enter the flame

All our flames now swaying and free, all our hearts now moving as one,
Every living spirit turned toward peace, all our tender hopes awake.

Called by this candle
Led to the flame
Called to remember
Enter the flame
Fire: howl
Fire: broken
Fire: burst
Fire: rage
Fire: swell
Fire: shatter
Fire: wail
Fire!

We all betray the ancient heart…
Ev’ry one of us, all of us…
His heart, my heart, your heart, one heart…
In each moment the fire rages, it will burn away a hundred veils…
Burning Breaking Grasping Raging

Fire: living in me
Fire: purify
Fire: now hold me
Fire: seize my heart 
(enter the flame, shatter my heart, called to enter, burn a hundred veils)
Called by this flame
Fire of my heart:
Breakdown all walls
Open all doors
Only this Love
Eyes of flesh, eyes of fire ~ Lumina, lumina, lumina
Open us, All!

In each moment the fire rages.
It will burn away a hundred veils.

We Are All Sons

Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn which have no songs
flutter and fall there with a sigh.
Once we dreamt that we were strangers.
We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.

We are all sons of fathers and mothers we are all sons
We are all rivers the roar of waters, we are all sons

I Am Like You

I am like you Aaron and Russell
When I think of you (and honestly I don’t like to think about you) but sometimes I do,
I am so horrified, and just so angry and confused (and scared) that you could do things to another boy—they were so cruel and so undeserved, so dark and hard and full of (I don’t know)
Late one night I had a glimpse of something I recognized, just a tiny glimpse—
I don’t even like to say this out loud, it isn’t even all that true—but I wondered for a moment, 
Am I like you? (in any way) (I pray the answer is no)
Am I like you? I bet you once had hopes and dreams, too.
Some things we love get lost along the way,
That’s just like me,  get lost along the way—
I am like you, I get confused and I’m afraid and I’ve been reckless,
I’ve been restless, bored, unthinking, listless, intoxicated,
I’ve come unhinged, and made mistakes and hurt people very much.
Sometimes I feel (in springtime, in early afternoon) the sunshine warm on my face;
You feel this too (don’t you?), the sunshine warm on your face.
I am like you (this troubles me)
I am like you (just needed to say this)
Some things we love get lost along the way…

We are all sons of fathers and mothers we are all sons 
Sometimes no home for us here on the earth 
No place to lay our heads 
We are all sons of fathers and mothers 
If you could know for one moment how it is to live in our bodies within the world 
If you could know 
You ask too much of us – you ask too little

The Innocence

When I think of all the times the world was ours for dreaming,
When I think of all the times the earth seemed like our home-
Every heart alive with its own longing,
Every future we could ever hope to hold.
All the times our laughter rang in summer,
All the times the rivers sang our tune-
Was there already sadness in the sunlight?
Some stormy story waiting to be told?
Where O where has the innocence gone?
Where O where has it gone?
Rains rolling down wash away my memory;
Where O where has it gone?

When I think of all the joys, the wonders we remember
All the treasures we believed we’d never ever lose.
Too many days gone by without their meaning,
Too many darkened hours without their peace.
Where O where has the innocence gone?
Where O where has it gone?
Vows we once swore, now it’s just this letting go,
Where O where has it gone?

The Fence (One Week Later)

I keep still
I stand firm
I hold my ground while they lay down

(flowers and photos, prayers and poems, crystals and candles, sticks and stones) 

They come in herds
They stand and stare
They sit and sigh
They crouch and cry
Some of them touch me in unexpected ways without asking permission and then move on
But I don’t mind
Being a shrine is better than being the scene of the crime

In Need of Breath

My heart
Is an unset jewel
Upon the tender night
Yearning for its dear old friend
The Moon.

When the Nameless One debuts again
Ten thousand facets of my being unfurl wings
And reveal such a radiance inside
I enter a realm divine

I too begin to sweetly cast light,
Like a lamp, I cast light
Through the streets of this world.
My heart is an unset jewel
Upon existence
Waiting for the Friend’s touch.

Tonight.  Tonight. 

My heart is an unset ruby
Offered bowed and weeping to the Sky.
I am dying in these cold hours
For the resplendent glance of God.
My heart is an unset jewel
Upon the tender night
My heart is an unset ruby
Offered bowed and weeping to the Sky.

Deer Song

A mist is over the mountain,
The stars in their meadows upon the air,
Your people are waiting below them,
And you know there’s a gathering there.
All night I lay there beside you,
I cradled your pain in my care,
We move through creation together,
And we know there’s a welcoming there.

Welcome, welcome, sounds the song,
Calling, calling clear;
Always with us, evergreen heart,
Where can we be but there?

I’ll find all the love I have longed for,
The home that’s been calling my heart so long
So soon I’ll be cleansed in those waters,
My fevers forever be gone;

Where else on earth but these waters?
No more, no more to be torn;
My own ones, my dearest, are waiting?
And I’ll weep to be where I belong.

Welcome, welcome, sounds the song,
Calling, calling clear;
Always with me, evergreen heart,
Where can I be but here?

Meet Me Here

Meet me here
Won’t you meet me here
Where the old fence ends and the horizon begins
There’s a balm in the silence
Like an understanding air
Where the old fence ends and the horizon begins

We’ve been walking through the darkness
On this long, hard climb
Carried ancestral sorrow
For too long a time
Will you lay down your burden
Lay it down, come with me
It will never be forgotten
Held in love, so tenderly

Meet me here
Won’t you meet me here
Where the old fence ends and the horizon begins
There’s a joy in the singing
Like an understanding air
Where the fence ends and the horizon begins.

Then we’ll come to the mountain
We’ll go bounding to see
That great circle of dancing
And we’ll dance endlessly
And we’ll dance with the all the children
Who’ve been lost along the way
We will welcome each other
Coming home, this glorious day

We are home in the mountain
And we’ll gently understand
That we’ve been friends forever
That we’ve never been alone
We’ll sing on through any darkness
And our Song will be our sight
We can learn to offer praise again
Coming home to the light . . .

All of Us

What could be the song?
Where begin again?
Who could meet us there?
Where might we begin?
From the shadows climb,
Rise to sing again;
Where could be the joy?
How do we begin?

Never our despair,
Never the least of us,
Never turn away,
Never hide your face;
Ordinary boy,
Only all of us,
Free us from our fear,
Only all of us.

What could be the song?
Where begin again?
Who could meet us there?
Where might we begin?
From the shadows climb,
Rise to sing again;
Where could be the joy?
How do we begin?
Never our despair,
Never the least of us,
Never turn away,
Never hide your face;
Ordinary boy,
Only all of us,
Free us from our fear.

Only in the Love,
Love that lifts us up,
Clear from out the heart
From the mountain’s side,
Come creation come,
Strong as any stream;
How can we let go? 
How can we forgive?
How can we be dream?
Out of heaven, rain,
Rain to wash us free;
Rivers flowing on,
Ever to the sea;
Bind up every wound,
Every cause to grieve;
Always to forgive,
Only to believe.

Most noble Light, Creation’s face,
How should we live but joined in you,
Remain within your saving grace
Through all we say and do
And know we are the Love that moves
The sun and all the stars?
O Love that dwells, O Love that burns
In every human heart.

(Only in the Love, Love that lifts us up!)

This evergreen, this heart, this soul,
Now moves us to remake our world,
Reminds us how we are to be
Your people born to dream;
How old this joy, how strong this call,
To sing your radiant care
With every voice, in cloudless hope
Of our belonging here.

Only in the Love… Only all of us…
(Heaven: Wash me…) All of us, only all of us.

What could be the song?
Where do we begin?
Only in the Love, 
Love that lifts us up.

All Of Us

All