This Light is quite simply a setting of Michael Fitzgerald’s poem of the same name for mezzo-soprano, cello and piano.

This Light This light, this waking is a walk
in late spring when cities quake
and music thrills the breast.
The mention of grass, green, green,
the blue night and gold dawning,
these hold us like wildflowers,
like Basques. Shepherds, sheep,
and mountains, we remember.
Time and fire, noon, then comes
a rose; a table in mid-day
wafts a heart-bent eye-waking, like
day, shining, to day.
-the table and the words-
A wine of the spirit in shattering light,
A keeping in day, shining, to day.

– Michael Fitzgerald (1988)

Cyclic Movements was composed in Tallahassee, Florida for Patrick Meighan in the Fall of 1995 and was premiered on November 9 that same year.

The available score, made in March 2014, contains a few small changes from the original.