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The Master Nailer
1978

soprano
flute 
piano

duration 2'

SCORE

TEXT

The Master Nailer
When I arrive my friends drop everything
and dash up to watch me nail.
My hammer and I are one. 

I can only nail nails into a bread crumb
But when I nail nails into a bread crumb
I nail so well that my friends forget everything
and are literally transported
transfigured into pure welkin. 

Only gradually
gradually do they reappear
do they recover
in running azure
then in flesh and blood
after I've stopped nailing my nails into a bread crumb 

Jean Arp (1887–1966) trans. Joachim Neugroschel