Seascape - Benjamin Britten

With Reid Wolch
Shaliu Lin Performance Center, August 2024

Spring Waters by Rachmaninoff

Durch Zärlichkeit

"Durch Zärtlichkeit und Schmeicheln"

My sister lounges in the wheel house...
on her stomach, legs in the air, 
reading about God. 

The windows all breath out
and the late sun shines in.

Up above the world, I wonder
how serene sweeping sky and sea,
with salmon jumping in an anchored silence - 
can yield a universe so small.

Ocean Airs: I. Salmon Hymn

I awaken. 
Sweating in my narrow bunk it's 11pm. 
Transfixed, I listen. 
Hydraulic moans in gentle swells

Against the boat, water laps 
In buzzing silence. 

I rise!
Outside, the sun recently gone
does not regret me or my story.
The fading horizon that encircles me
does not fall silent to my cry.

I weep.
A gull shrieks back
In the distance a small island 
Protecting her own children with curve and crevice...
Breathes free.

Now she listens, 
Gazing with the grief of the virgin into my father’s face.
With her rocks and single tree root 
Alerts her all seducing ocean mother 
Whose currents and waves come to my aid.

Ocean Airs: II. Ocean Ode

Pink
	Pink and orange and red
Blue and pink and orange and red                        			
                                    dissolves 
                                          into lapping, pulsing water.

				In the corner of my eye
  the moon casts hazily down - her reflection swimming,
							at kelp 
		                                                 riding gentle rolls. 

      The fiery vapor 
			                   - scraped across the sky -
		Obscures the dim sliver
                       Singing of power unspent
		              Untested.

Stephanie Pfundt

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