1. |
Ish Province Work Song
03:07
|
|||
|
Ish Province Work Song by Sam Hamill
The plan is the work.
The work is play, joy.
Wherein reside silence and song
side by side
lighting, the way.
|
||||
2. |
How Could We Forget?
04:18
|
|||
|
How Could We Forget? by Rainer Maria Rilke
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races: the
myths about the dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses?
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who only wait to see us act, just
once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps all that frightens us, in its deepest essence, is
something helpless that wants our love.
|
||||
3. |
Unity
03:51
|
|||
|
Unity by Pablo Neruda
All leaves are this leaf.
All petals are this flower
and abundance a lie.
For all fruit is the same.
The trees are one, alone,
and the earth, a single flower.
|
||||
4. |
Solstice
06:29
|
|||
|
Solstice by Sam Hamill
Old snow turns to ice
what solitary stillness
empties this cold world.
Snow-laden cedars,
like monks in green and white robes,
all learning to bow.
One stick of incense,
one last bottle of sake–
one, and one, and one.
The moon, still alone.
Ten thousand whirling galaxies
and, simply, the moon.
|
||||
5. |
Peacock Feather
03:09
|
|||
|
Peacock Feather by Rainer Maria Rilke
Peacock feather:
peerless in your elegance,
How I loved you even as a child.
I took you for a love token
which by silversilent ponds
elves in cool nights hand each other
when children are all gone to sleep.
And since good little Grandmama
often read me of wishing wands,
I dreamed, you delicate of air,
there flowed in your fine filaments
the crafty force of the divining-rod—
and sought you in the summer grass.
|
||||
6. |
Elegy
03:38
|
|||
|
Elegy by Sam Hamill
It is almost dawn,
the procession of stars
journeying again
into blindness. You who could
not touch me show me the way.
|
||||
7. |
All Of It
04:26
|
|||
|
All Of It adapted from David Wagoner, Who Shall be the Sun?
When you saw that man was coming you changed into the rocks
into fish and birds, a swimin’ a flyin’
up on that hill there’s you.
Have I held you much too lightly?
Have I broken your silence too?
Carelessly in my hands I drunk you and burnt you and carved you and knew you
and danced upon your skin.
All of it,
suffering my foolishness.
I’ll take care of this and more.
As the old wait quietly among the clumsy children
the others are coming soon.
I must change into the people, my people, we people, only people,
but how do i change myself?
If no one here can really teach me and reach me and calm me and know me
then let me become myself.
I will learn to crawl, stand and fly,
anywhere, everywhere around you.
|
||||
8. |
Oracular
05:09
|
|||
|
Oracular by Sam Hamill
Gray alders turn glistening black
in the moonlight so yellow
it has blinded all the stars.
In all the leaflets night,
no sound.
Rain frozen on the boughs.
|
||||
9. |
||||
|
The Art of Literary Translation by Sam Hamill
1.
Asking one who is
not a poet to translate
poetry is like
asking a heart surgeon to
repair your brakes—every
once in a while, you’ll
find one who can do it well.
2.
Squabbling as they will
in busy traffic, two crows
make meals of road kill.
|
||||
10. |
The Search
06:56
|
|||
|
The Search by John Logan
But for whom do I look?
The whole night long you will see me walk
or maybe during the day
watch me pass by.
But I do not wander.
It is a search. For I stop here,
or here, wherever people gather.
Depot, restaurant, bar.
But for whom do I seek?
You will see me coming back
perhaps at dawn. Sometimes
the faces seem like tombs.
I have tried to read the names
so long my eyes darken in their graves
of bone. (The bodies of our eyes lie side by side but do not touch.)
But for whom do I look? My search
is not for wife, daughter or for son
for time to time it has taken me from them.
Or has wrenched me from my friend:
I will abruptly leave him,
and I do not go home.
Then, for whom do I seek? Out of what fear?
It is not for queers
for my search leads me from their bars,
It is not for whores,
since I reject their wares,
or another time may not.
Then for whom do I look?
When I was young I thought
I wanted (yearned for) older age.
Now I think I hunt with so much rage
that I will risk or lose
family or friends for the ghost of my youth.
Thus I do not know for what I look.
Father? Mother?
The father who will be the mother?
Sister who will be the brother?
Often I hunt in the family of others—
until hope scatters.
I will call up a friend or student at night
or I will fly
to see them—will bask and heal in the warm
places of their homes.
And I must not be alone
no matter what needs be done,
for then my search is ended.
So now the panicked thumbs of my poem pick
through the grill. They poke
the lock
and put out a hand and then an arm.
The limbs of my poems
come within your reach.
Perhaps it is you whom I seek.
|
||||
11. |
Kyorei
08:20
|
|||
|
from the Kyotaku Denki Koku Jitai, 1795
Myôtôrai, myôtôda. Antôrai, antôda.
If light comes, I strike it. If dark comes, I strike it.
|
||||
12. |
Saltarello
04:19
|
|||
Sasha Bogdanowitsch New York, New York
Sasha Bogdanowitsch is a composer, vocalist and multi -instrumentalist, whose work includes music for theater, dance and film, interdisciplinary performance, concert music and original songs. He is a co-founder of World In One, Vital Vox Vocal Festival, Loom Ensemble & SoCorpo. He currently performs solo and as a member of the Moving Star Vocal Ensemble and folk trio, Up at Dawn. ... more
If you like Striking Light, Striking Dark, you may also like:
Cry My Heart, Cry! Songs from Testimonies, Vol. 2
by Zisl Slepovitch Ensemble & Sasha Lurje
Originally sung by Holocaust survivors in Yiddish, Polish and French, this moving album is now available in a gorgeous LP package.
go to album
Root Strata’s “Affinity Suite” is hushed and mysterious, subtly blurring the boundaries between jazz & classical music.
go to album
Prajñāghoṣa - Flow of Adhiṣṭhāna
by Prajñāghoṣa
featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 16, 2024
go to album
Orile to Berlin
by RAH & The Ruffcats
featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 16, 2024
go to album
featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 9, 2024
go to album
A new EP from Low Leaf expands on the wide-ranging and intoxicating jazz and ambient fusion that defined her earlier work.
go to album
Singeli Ya Maajabu
by Sisso & Maiko
More breakneck dance music from Uganda, as Nyege Nyege all-stars Sisso & Maiko team up for a non-stop banger.
go to album
