i - Prelude

ii - To Let the Grass Grow
If we so choose, these are redolent days. 
But we so rarely choose that, don't we now?
Is it a kind of our selfish mouthed pride, 
Which causes us to shut the sweetness out?
If you are hurting, or are tired or sad, 
Then shut the hurtful, sad tiring things out. 
Songbirds will choose their trees for greenery. 
And I will pick my thoughts like seeds in soil, 
And walk gently when I do so, 
To let the grass grow. 

clarinet | Courtney Cook
cello | Michael Gibson
piano | Imogen Scott-Parker
speaker | Alys Rayner

poetry by Brendon McLeod, from "To Mend a Soul" 2018

recording by audio engineer Sam Muller

photography by Carolina Dolan

Alys Rayner Song Cycle

i Prelude and ii To Let the Grass Grow

iv To a Woman...
(To a Woman Who I Saw for a Few Moments at Work, at The Other Checkout, You Know The One There, And I Suppose it was Fortuitous that I had a Selected Keats Stuffed in the Pocket of my Coat)

A falling leaf disrupts the apple cart, 
Before I was visited by your face. 
I tried and failed to see, investigate, 
But I was helped by your autumn wind heart. 
If the way you looked was all that mattered, 
Let me be silent, never speak again. 
Let the rhythms of my feathered heart explain:
The way you softly fluttered your eyelashes, 
Laid null my fragile conception of time, 
By extinguishing all thoughts of our laith
Disjointedness, the beats you bat entwined
Body and energy. You went your way. 
I turned away and didn't look again. 
Because my face had turned a crimson red. 

voice | Eleanor Adeney
cello | Michael Gibson

poetry by Brendon McLeod, from "To Mend a Soul", 2018

recording by audio engineer Sam Muller

photography by Carolina Dolan

iv To a Woman... - To Let the Grass Grow

vi Dream Past the Stars

Dream past the stars, love, 
Into my eyes. 
Let me feel the fire of hyperion's fusion, 
In your sweet eyes. 

Let me know what it means to be you,
Past the confusion of the contusion of the plasma, 
And the dreams you've had, and who you are,
Will be apparent to me in the starblaze of your eyes.

Just wait for me to say something stupid,
As I am hurled at speeds past light down gravity wells and orbital chasms,
Though to the fire of your heart, 
Disoriented by who you are. 

This is what he said when he took her into his arm, 
The man of the sky beyond the stars took the woman of all matter, 
Into his arms and begged to know her song,
But he could never know her until they were intertwined.

voice | Eleanor Adeney
clarinet | Courtney Cook
cello | Michael Gibson
piano | Imogen Scott-Parker
speaker | Alys Rayner

poetry by Brendon McLeod, from "To Mend a Soul", 2018

recording by audio engineer Sam Muller

photography by Carolina Dolan

viii A Musing - To Let the Grass Grow

ix Wattle

And, oddly, and October bough of wattle fills me with longing.

clarinet | Courtney Cook
cello | Michael Gibson
piano | Imogen Scott-Parker
speaker | Alys Rayner

poetry by Brendon McLeod, from "To Mend a Soul", 2018

recording by audio engineer Sam Muller

photography by Carolina Dolan

ix Wattle - To Let the Grass Grow

x I'm Just Going Home

The smell of a moth escaping rain on bitumen
Police sirens as I scamper. 

voice | Eleanor Adeney 
piano | Imogen Scott-Parker

poetry by Brendon McLeod, from "To Mend a Soul", 2017

recording by audio engineer Sam Muller

photography by Carolina Dolan

x I'm Just Going Home - To Let the Grass Grow

xi Soul: Part II

A soul is shattered by encounters,
Which intrude on sapling's growth outward,
Your will, while Earth's frosted by winter,
                To mend your soul, 
Makes what it will be, what it once was, 
                 God-gifted whole!

voice |  Eleanor Adeney
clarinet | Courtney Cook
cello | Michael Gibson
piano | Imogen Scott-Parker
speaker | Alys Rayner

poetry by Brendon McLeod, from "To Mend a Soul", 2018

recording by audio engineer Sam Muller

photography by Carolina Dolan

xi Soul: Part II - To Let the Grass Grow

vii I Drag it Behind Me

1.      I drag my heart behind me as I walk
1.1.    It flows behind me as a stick of chalk
1.1.1                 It draws its lines behind me as I walk.
1.2.   And often times the line has been cut short
2.     The paths heart traces stagger as it breaks
2.1.   The footpaths colour with the paths I take
2.2.1  I step over your heart and the line shakes
2.2.1              It traced the curves of your form on the paves.
3.       And one thing I know is the line can't stop.
3.1.           If it were to waver or break on rocks
3.1.1               The drawing I do on the past's harsh rocks
3.2                 I am the man I am, not who I was.
4.       I drag behind my past my lines of heart
4.1                  Only with you my life becomes an art.

speaker | Alys Rayner
clarinet | Courtney Cook

poetry by Brendon McLeod, from "To Mend a Soul", 2018

recording by audio engineer Sam Muller

photography by Carolina Dolan

vii I Drag It Behind Me - To Let the Grass Grow

Conscious Arc

movements
1) And
2) The Courage of Conviction
3) Drives
4) A Passacaglia on One Note
5) To
6) End

Performed by Australian Youth Orchestra composition ensemble National Music Camp, 2019. Recorded at the Elder Hall, Adelaide.

Conscious Arc

i -Concertante
ii - Cadenza
iii - Then, Hero
iv -Adagio, Scherzo

Performed by Sanctuary String Quartet (Dan Lopez, Wayne Brennan, Raquel Bastos and Ely Streatfield)

Luce Quartet

Chamber musician and composer.
Born in Albury, regional New South Wales, studied violin and viola in Canberra and Brisbane.
(Carolina Dolan - photographs)

Alys G Rayner

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