Ever-Returning Spring (2025) for violin and cello duet takes its title from a line of Walt Whitman. The musical image is a very simple and perennial one: the gradual return of spring after a long winter. Despite the genericness of this yearly occurrence, I find it viscerally exciting each time. In this piece, the two string instruments are cast throughout in largely euphonious discourse with a varied rhythmic fluidity that explores this mood.