On a July night in 2020, a young man in Kansas—the sort of young man who would leave Kansas for New York to become a pianist; the sort of pianist who would become a composer to write a song for a girl in a window; the sort of lover who would then take the train in a typhoon to buy her dinner—saw a comet streak the sky, got into a car, and followed it.

Comet NEOWISE is a long period comet with a near-parabolic orbit discovered on the 27th of March 2020. It is the brightest comet to have appeared in the northern hemisphere since 1997, shining so gloriously that for 113 days, anyone looking up would have seen it. 6.4 billion people live in the northern hemisphere. One, the young man in Kansas, the

pianist, composer, lover of stars and believer in such absurdities as poems, composed an anthem, then another, then an entire album about that comet, about

beauty that crosses skies, transcends borders, pandemics and the limits of our tiny lives and loves and losses. He called it Dust and Ions, the duality that makes things like comet tails and the gorgeous joy and pain of existence.

He made the music, asked me for the words, and together we made a poem, a concert to which you are invited, on the 17^th and 18^th of September. The proceeds will buy

medicine for pediatric oncology patients in Lebanon,
and musical instruments for disadvantaged children in Wichita who cannot afford them.

Here is a taste: one of the six poems, below, with one of the songs. Read, listen, close your eyes and picture comets, then, if you like,

join us, or buy the album. Your contribution will fund such absolute necessities as music and medication.

In the beginning, there was Word.

No.

In the beginning,
There was a poem,

Before Hydrogen 63,
Carbon 9.5,
Oxygen 26,
Nitrogen 1,

(Total: 99.5%)

before,

in that half percent
time-space to existence,
there was a poem,
and it was

so beautifully dense—

with
all the lives, the stars,
there ever would or could be;

every kiss in time;
Time itself;
every nanosecond, possible breath

caught

amazed;

every molecule of air brushed against
every
tuft of dandelion

every seed, sand, drop,
shade of ocean blue, and

every
heartbeat—

all the beauty there ever would, could be,
crystal,
distilled…

the poem exploded

into an infinity of

light
and music,

and gorgeously,

no one,
nothing,

but a sky ablaze with sparkling comets, trailing dust and ions.

– Yara Zgheib, Dust and Ions