music        news/events        bio        contact        recordings Return to a Place 1988 baritone piano duration 17'  first performance: Sanford Sylvan and David Breitman Walker Art Center, Minneapolis / April 23, 1992 SCORE The Babies The Lost Children  Cloud River Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk The Garden The Project Solitude There Is No PROGRAM NOTE Return to a Place, written for Sanford Sylvan and David Breitman, sets poems by five contemporary American poets. The mood is generally elegiac despite the urgency of both The Babies, which opens the cycle, and The Project. A thread which connects these texts is the concept of transformation, whether through memory, rebirth, time or a changed point of view. If there is a geographical setting for this cycle it would be limbo—a place where things are poised ready to happen but haven't yet occured, just as the unborn children in the third song, Cloud River, rowing across the sky, are waiting for their time. TEXTS The Babies Let us save the babies. Let us run downtown. The babies are screaming.  You shall wear mink and your hair shall be done. I shall wear tails.  Let us save the babies even if we run in rags to the heart of town.  Let us not wait for tomorrow. Let us drive into town and save the babies.  Let us hurry. They lie in a warehouse with iron windows and iron doors.  The sunset pink of their skin is beginning to glow. Their teeth  poke through their gums like tombstones. Let us hurry.  They have fallen asleep. Their dreams are infecting them.  Let us hurry. Their screams rise from the warehouse chimney.  We must move faster. The babies have grown into their suits. they march all day in the sun without blinking.  Their leader sits in a bullet-proof car and applauds. Smoke issues from his helmet. We cannot see his face:  we are still running. More babies than ever are locked in the warehouse. Their screams are like sirens.  We are still running to the heart of town. Our clothes are getting ragged. We shall not wait for tomorrow.  The future is always beginning now. The babies are growing into their suits. Let us run into the heart of town.  Let us hurry. Let us save the babies. Let us try to save the babies.  Mark Strand (b.1934)  The Lost Children Years ago, as dusk seeped from the blue spruce in the yard, they ran to hide. It was easy to find those who crouched in the shadow of the chicken coop or stood still among motionless horses by the water trough. But I never found the willful ones who crossed the fence and lay down in the high grass to stare up at the pattern of stars and meandering summer firefly sparks.  Now I stand by the fence and pluck one rusted strand of wire, harp of lost worlds. At the sound the children rise from hiding and move toward me: eidolons, adrift on the night air.  Gregory Orr (b.1947)  Cloud River The unborn children are rowing out to the far edge of the sky, Looking for warm beds to appear in. How lucky they are, dressed In their lake-colored gowns, the oars in their oily locks Taking them stroke by stroke to circumference and artery.  I'd like to be with them still, pulling my weight, Blisters like small white hearts in the waxed palms of my hands. I'd like to remember my old name, and keep the watch, Waiting for something immense and unspeakable to uncover its face.  Charles Wright (b.1935)  Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk Late at night our hands stop working. They lie open with tracks of animals Journeying across the fresh snow. They need no one. Solitude surrounds them.  As they come closer, as they touch, It is like two small streams Which upon entering a wide river Feel the pull of the distant sea.  The sea is a room far back in time Lit by the headlights of a passing car. A glass of milk glows on the table. Only you can reach it for me now.  Charles Simic (b.1938)  The Garden It shines in the garden, in the white foliage of the chestnut tree, in the brim of my father's hat as he walks on the gravel.  In the garden suspended in time my mother sits in a redwood chair; light fills the sky, the folds of her dress, the roses tangled beside her.  And when my father bends to whisper in her ear, when they rise to leave and the swallows dart and the moon and stars have drifted off together, it shines.  Even as you lean over this page, late and alone, it shines; even now in the moment before it disappears.  Mark Strand (b.1935)  The Project My plan was to generate light with no outside source. To accomplish this, I lived alone in a burrow under the earth. Previously I had observed that in darkness my body gave off a faint light. Suspecting that this glow came from my bones, I scraped the flesh from my right hand. I'd been underground so long the meat came off painlessly, like wet clay. But when the flesh was gone, the light was gone too.  Gregory Orr (b.1947)  Solitude There now, where the first crumb Falls from the table You think no one hears it As it hits the floor  But somewhere already The ants are putting on Their Quakers' hats And setting out to visit you.  Charles Simic (b.1938)  There is No  There is no silk nor worm to spin it.  There is no hallway no dark no rain no grape or rose or hill.  There is no otter nor ocean nor sand.  There is no onion nor tongue There is no stocking  no wagon or horse or ploughman.  There is no book no noise in the stairwell no neighbor hanging wash.  There is no dream no biscuit nor spring nor winter air.  There is no candle nor door closing nor music.  There is no swan or sparrow.  There is no broom or dust.  There is no moon no pocket nor fence nor window.  There is no fog no mountain grove nor fire nor still lake. There is no boat nor oar nor cat nor cargo nor men in caps waiting.  Faye Kicknosway (b.1936)