I Never Saw a Butterfly

During the terrible reign of darkness that was Nazi Germany, a "model ghetto" was set up in Terezin that would come to house 15,000 children ages 8-15. Fewer than a 1,000 of the children would survive. Even more heartbreaking, this children's prison camp contained a large percentage of artistic, creative kids - some of whom left behind brief glimpses of the profound gifts that never made it to maturation. Included in these artistic testimonies were sketches and poems. Composer Charles Davidson went on to set a few of the poems to music.

On Monday night, the North Carolina Boys Choir stopped in Owensboro as part of a two week tour throughout the South and Midwest. They came prepared to sing many pieces - pieces from Bach, Mendelssohn, Rutter - and the final portion of their performance contained one of the Terezin poems as composed by Davidson. It is simply called Birdsong:

Birdsong

He doesn't know the world at all who stays in his nest and doesn't go out.
He doesn't know what the birds know best, nor what I want to sing about,
That the world is full of loveliness. When dew drops sparkle in the grass,
And earth's a-flood with morning light. A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the morning after night. Then I know how fine it is to be alive.
Hey try to open up your hearts to beauty, go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there. Then, if tears obscure your way,
You'll know how wonderful it is to be alive. To be alive!