Start Where You Stand

Last winter, I saw a call for score with the UBC Vox and Oriana choirs looking for a piece for their year-end concert. And as I was looking for inspiration to write them a piece, I stumbled upon the poetry of Berton Braley and his ‘Start Where You Stand’. I was both captivated and left reassured through a powerful message of letting go of the past, and living in the present. It was a message that resonated with me then and even now, and I’m glad to share these words with you:

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Start where you stand and never mind the past,

The past won't help you in beginning new,

If you have left it all behind at last

Why, that's enough, you're done with it, you're through;

This is another chapter in the book,

This is another race that you have planned,

Don't give the vanished days a backward look,

Start where you stand.

 

The world won't care about your old defeats

If you can start anew and win success,

The future is your time, and time is fleet

And there is much of work and strain and stress;

Forget the buried woes and dead despairs,

Here is a brand new trial right at hand,

The future is for him who does and dares,

Start where you stand.

 

Old failures will not halt, old triumphs aid,

To-day's the thing, to-morrow soon will be;

Get in the fight and face it unafraid,

And leave the past to ancient history;

What has been, has been; yesterday is dead

And by it you are neither blessed nor banned,

Take courage, man, be brave and drive ahead,

Start where you stand.

 

-Berton Braley