It Comes Unadorned

Toni Morrison’s “It Comes Unadorned” is the fourth of her “five poems,” the only set of poems she published. “It Comes Unadorned” describes something–love, connection, spirituality–that appears where you least expect it. It describes bliss found in mundanity, in shared labor, and in nature–bliss that derives from care. It describes the unadulterated beauty in the everyday, when the everyday is shared. This piece does not quite come unadorned: it comes with the human desire to capture moments of this sort, to wait for them to come, and, on occasion, to challenge or devalue them when they arrive. It comes with the instinct to hoard, and to hide. The tension between this instinct, and the acceptance and care Morrison describes, is what drove me to write this piece the way that I did.

“It Comes Unadorned” was written as a commission to write a choir and orchestra piece for the Lorain County Bicentennial, and was read by the Oberlin Orchestra and Musical Union (choir) in Finney Chapel on May 6th, 2024, under Gregory Ristow. The piano and choir version was premiered on the Musical Union’s May 5th concert. Settings of the other poems in Morrison’s five poems are currently in progress.