Poetry and lyrics in the order of the program:

The Monk and His Cat  by Samuel Barber

Irish poem from the 8th or 9th century; 

translated by W.H. Auden

Pangur, white Pangur, 

How happy we are 

Alone together, Scholar and cat. 

Each has his own work to do daily; 

For you it is hunting, for me study. 

Your shining eye watches the wall; 

my feeble eye is fixed on a book. 

You rejoice when your claws entrap a mouse; 

I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem. 

Pleased with his own art 

Neither hinders the other; 

Thus we live ever 

without tedium and envy. 

Pangur, white Pangur, 

How happy we are 

Alone together, Scholar and cat.

Little Monster (Uilebheist Bheag)

by Kathryn Woodard

Poem by Kendra Preston Leonard 

On that small far island

where the sea-beast from colder waters

blocks the high lamp and stars both

where the wind is a beast,

a monster is among the primroses.
 

A stalker, redolent in gore and flower all the same,

he follows; though you may cross

cold flowing water or salted doorway, he comes,

carrying errant strands of horsehair and

meadowflesh.

Against the cold and wild rain,

let him in, let him warm by the fire,

give him the dogs’ old sheepskin.

In morning he will go again,

hunting your vermin to clear his debt.

The Seal Man  by Rebecca Clarke

Lyrics by John Masefield

And he came by her cabin to the west of the road, calling. 

There was a strong love came up in her at that, 

and she put down her sewing on the table, and “Mother,” 

she says, "There's no lock, and no key, and no bolt, and no door. 

There's no iron, nor no stone, nor anything at all 

will keep me this night from the man I love." 

And she went out into the moonlight to him, 

there by the bush where the flow'rs is pretty, beyond the river. 

And he says to her: “You are all of the beauty of the world, 

will you come where I go, over the waves of the sea?” 

And she says to him: “My treasure and my strength,” she says, 

“I would follow you on the frozen hills, my feet bleeding.” 

Then they went down into the sea together, 

and the moon made a track on the sea, and they walked down it; 

it was like a flame before them. There was no fear at all on her; 

only a great love like the love of the Old Ones, 

that was stronger than the touch of the fool. 

She had a little white throat, and little cheeks like flowers, 

and she went down into the sea with her man, 

who wasn't a man at all. 

She was drowned, of course.

It's like he never thought that she wouldn't bear the sea like himself. 

She was drowned, drowned.

From the Other Diary (for piano solo)  by Ilhan Mimaroğlu
 

Poems of Nikita Gill 

Music by Melissa Dunphy

I. Sorcery

Every day I magic myself alive again

from the near death experience of trauma.

I swallow my heart back from

the lump it has become in my throat.

I taste my own memories

without the flavour of blood bu as poetry.

I learn how to whisper my name

Without it sounding like a curse.

I murmur spells to the parts of me

others have found too dangerous to love.

And after this morning ritual

I finally smile at the woman in my mirror.

Tell me again,

how healing is not a magical thing.

Tell me again,

how I am not made of sorcery.
 

II. From the Ashes She Became

Before she became fire, she was water.

Quenching the thirst of every dying creature.

She gave and she gave

until she turned from sea to desert.

But instead of dying of the heat,

the sadness, the heartache,

she took all of her pain 

and from her own ashes became fire.

III. You Have Become a Forest

One day when you wake up, you will find that you

have become a forest. You have grown roots and 

found strength in them that no one thought you 

had. You have become stronger and more beautiful, 

full of life giving qualities. You have learned to take 

all the negativity around you and turn it into 

oxygen for easy breathing. A host of wild creatures 

live inside you and you call them stories. A variety of 

beautiful birds rest inside your mind and you call

them memories. You have become an incredible self

sustaining thing of epic proportions. And you 

should be so proud of yourself, of how far you have 

come from the seeds of who you used to be.

~INTERMISSION~

No One Knows the Time  by Kathryn Woodard

Poetry by Tina Chang 

I. Siren 
 
The darkness holds her quivering

like a girl leaning over a boat.

The ripple of water and light

fool her into believing.

Light penetrates water

and makes folds in places

the wind may have overlooked.
 

In my world, I never swim,

only will myself to be the one

who is foolish enough to want

to touch the light on water,

where desire follows me

and wraps its arms around

me, body hitting water.

II. Libretto

An empire falls to a smoldering seed.

A voice fades from it. Pastries: little 

purses of custard, red bean, a bit of mud.

The rotten city where smoke flowers

from her face, her lungs etched 

in perfume. Shops signs: Chinese characters

contained in squares, the moon fixed 

into a picture, strange glass she looks 

into, angled little bones.

III. Easter

The F train moves slowly on Sunday and no one

knows the presence of God in the flickering light,

except the woman in a violet dress, hushed into 

a lovely bruise, a long stalk of willows in her arms.
 

No one knows the moment God chooses

to come in the form of Chinese characters

raining down the pages of a book, gently held

by the man sitting next to me.
 

Twins sit across from me, two Indian men

dressed in matching blue uniforms, whispering 

something of their simultaneous unease. Duplicate 

voices, Siamese cadence. No one knows the time,
 

the hour of when and where we’re rushing.

The windows of the train have been cracked

with stones or with fists. The criss-crossing 

pattern of silver tape masks the damage
 

like a blister, a star. We are populating

a civilization, singing into the air,

as if into the ear of someone great

or anyone who will listen.
 

IV. Part of the Forest

It’s the devil you would like to extinguish.

The one that is hiding in the still life between

the bright yellow pear and the claw of a bird.

It makes the painting deteriorate before it’s finished.

The baroque angels are sinking on top of you.

Lower. And the temperature drops. Your mouth

is a wrinkled heart, twice deflated, ear pressed

to the floor. Someone is laughing next doo.

The bell rings. You put your arms around 

the messenger, make love to him by the doorway.
 

A flower appears in the hollow space

you carved with your silence and regret.

The devil pushes the girl’s hair behind her small ear.

You can hear his music. You might know the song.

The words in your mouth taste like sugar, gun powder.

You’re alarmed at the darkness, in the rib cage 

where the heart beats like a spent ember. Perhaps

it was the damaged liver, the guilty splayed interior, 

pink once you halve the organ. When everything

is lit on fire, you say the organ died.

Chansons de Bilitis  by Claude Debussy

Poetry by Pierre Loüys