Once Upon A Time…

The Stolen Child

Eric Whitacre · Text by William Butler Yeats

Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

The Frost Myth

Katerina Gimon * · Poem by Alice Williams Brotherton

Out of Frost and Fire sprang Ymir, Type of Chaos, long ago; Mighty Odin slew the giant, As the Norsemen know. From the rushing blood the ocean In swift thunderous torrents whirled; From the ponderous carcass Odin Carved the Mitgard world,-- Of his hair made waving forests, Of his skull the vaulted sky, Moulded from his bones the mountains Which around us lie. Lo, today, upon my window Odin carves on every pane, (To rebuke my skeptic smiling), A new world again. Mountain, forest, plain and river, Flash upon my raptured sight; Here is Summer's perfect joyance, And Spring's dear delight. Ferny cliff, cascade and grotto, Glitter on the frosty pane-- Miracle the Norsemen chanted Here is wrought again. Who shall say the gods have left us, Or that Odin's power is lost, When new Mitgards rise before us Out of Fire and Frost?

Fairytale Dream

Stuart Beatch * · Text by Sue Croll +

Dream of waking up in jail. Rather, behind brambles. I must have been sleeping for years. My hair had grown so long and heavy, I had to drag it behind me. When I pinned it up, it was a barbed, weighted crown, a royal migraine. Braiding my hair into a brittle yellow rope (I had become blond in my slumber) was no better. When I took up my ornate silver shears to relieve the magic burden of this unasked-for bounty, a sharp voice beside my ear whispered, Don't do it. An old woman held back my hand. Don't cut. Your great golden ladder is required for princes soon to ascend your tower.

The Angel

Tina Andersson · Text by Mikhail Lermontov

Out of the midnight sky an angel soars, silently down towards the earth, but the moon and the clouds upon their nightly watch, perceive his celestial song. He sings of the sin-free souls and how they dwell in peace, within the paradise garden groves. He sings of the Lord almighty and his praise flows through this night asleep. He carries in his arms a restless soul to life's despair and faults, but something in his song remains, in wordless keep, within the soul. And long she suffers in this world of despair but with a strange yearning worn, and never it fades, that tone from God, with its mournful sounds of the world.

Tapestry (excerpts)

Laura Hawley * · Text by Jeni Couzyn +

Ocean remembers the colour of angels spanning blue horizons. Blue stone remembers their eyes Lapis flicking sunlight a rim of blue iris Sapphire holds the gaze steady sparking Tanzanite fills in the pupils. Wind holds true remembering wings snaking with light scented breath in a swish of leaves throngs of them fireworks too bright to see aware of us though we glimpse them once in a lifetime. We should remember Angels.

I stand by my life. I stand in darkness, like on a rock in the middle of a churning river. I stand by the choices I made, my actions wholehearted, generous, and brave I stand by my life and I sing, my silence a drop in the heaving sea of the singers with slit tongue. I sing though no echo comes back. I sing as a warrior into the silence. A serene fish barely moving opens its mouth to receive my syllables as they swim but I will not stop. I'm witness to the earth and cosmos this intricate heart of mine I bring to union with the One, this wild rider reigned to truth - that uncontrollable black bull of sorrow. If I could hang out my life in sunlight it would spark, a tapestry of brilliants in a fine pattern, a web of meaning each stitch with its meaning like a shadow. I stand by my life - this vibrating nuclear sun this wholeness that has been my life. I pulse with fullness a bee with wings beating two hundred times every second I hum with fullness orchestra in my cells, choir of my mind singing lighthouse spinning light waves in a polar sky. Gazing outward at you from my centre I see galaxies. The light waves travel outward through time. The sound waves travel looping and winding harmonies in indelible singing. This life I inhabit will hold its hieroglyph through eternity the sword dance of a warrior brave, present. The patterns of the dance remain in air as sounds do, as light does an energetic transmission for light years. No-one on earth needs to read this or agree or endorse it. I acknowledge my beautiful life.

Légende de la Femme Emmurée

Ēriks Ešenvalds · Text from Vendit tem by Martin Camaj · Translation by Robert Elsie

Atje te ura në lumë, Ooooi, E mjera unë, Most a bëre të bëje punë, Ooooi, E mjera unë. Qi fletë vjehrra nusës së madhe, Ooooi, Bjeru bukën mos të valë, Ooooi, E mjera unë. Qi fletë vjehrra nusës së vogël, Ooooi, Bjeru bukën mos të valë, Ooooi, E mjera unë. Në themelët e Kalasë, Ooooi, Është pendu se ja dhanë një vashë, Ooooi, E mjera unë.

There at the bridge o'er the river, Woe, oh woe is me, Do not set forth a working, Woe, oh woe is me. To her eldest son's wife speaks the mother: Woe, woe Take them food, do not fail, Woe, oh woe is me. To her youngest son's wife speaks the mother: Woe, woe Take them food, do not fail, Woe, oh woe is me. To the foundations of that fortress, Woe, woe, They regret that they once gave a girl, Woe, oh woe is me.

A prayer to bring you home

John Estacio * · Text from Standard candles by Alice Major +

Come home. The street is lined with green ash, you know these trees, now turning bronze. Come home. You know the songs sung in the cracked voice of this sidewalk. Come home past the drying stalks of morning, mourning, sigh and clutter. Come home through the litter of autumn leaving us again. Come home. I am watching for you from the window, half-empty glass Come home up the path you have always known. Come home. Your suitcase is heavy as a headstone, light as a purseful of leaves. Come home. It is warm. Come in my arms.

The Nightingale

Uģis Prauliņš (b. 1947) · Text by Hans Christian Andersen

"My word! That's lovely! These books went all over the world and so in course of time some of them reached the Emperor there he sat in his golden chair reading: "But the nightingale is really the best of all."

Here lived a nightingale that sang so beautifully

"What's this?" thought the Emperor. "Is there such a bird in my Empire? Why, I've never heard of her! - and what's more: in my own GARDEN!?" "... she's never been presented at COURT. It's the first I've ever heard of her!" "If she fails to appear then every courtier shall be punched in the stomach directly after supper!"

So then they all set out for the wood where the nightingale used to sing; half the Court joined in the quest. As they were going along a cow began to moo. "Ah, there she is!" said the courtiers. "No, that's a cow mooing! We've still got a long way to go!" Then some frogs started croaking in the pond. "Delightful," said the Emperor's chaplain, "now I can hear her, just like little church bells!" "No, those are frogs! But I expect we shall soon hear her now."

"There she is! Listen!" said the little girl, "up there! Little nightingale!" called out the small kitchen maid quite boldly. "Our gracious Emperor would like you to sing to him."

At the palace every thing had been polished up, until the china walls and floors glittered in the light of thousands of gold lamps. The loveliest flowers hung ready for tinkling, their bells were all set ringing. At the palace, at the Court every one was dressed in their finest clothes, and you couldn't hear a word that was spoken. In the middle of the great hall in which the Emperor sat was a golden perch for the nightingale: the entire Court was present and the little kitchen maid was allowed to stand behind the door, as she now ranked as a regular palace kitchen maid! And the nightingale sang so beautifully that tears came into the Emperor's eyes and then the nightingale's singing became even lovelier. and then it went straight to his heart. "Who ever saw such airs and graces!" said the ladies around; and they went and filled their mouths with water so as to gurgle when anyone spoke to them. They thought they could be nightingales too! Yes, even the lackeys and ladies' maids expressed their approval; and that's saying a good deal, for they are the most difficult of all to satisfy. There's no doubt whatever, the nightingale made a great hit.

"Zee-zee-zee, kloo-kloo-klook" ...and all the while its tail went up and down, glittering with silver and gold. The street boys sang "Zee-zee-zee, kloo-kloo-klook" and the Emperor sang it too! It really was a tremendous fun! Over and over it sang its one and only song thirty three times without tiring. "How delightful!" they all said. Nightingale, the Artificial bird, with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. "Snap", "Whirrr" - what's this? - and the music stopped. But where ever was she? No one had noticed her fly out of the open window away to her own green woods. The real nightingale was sent into exile, banished from land and realm.

Five years had now gone by and presently the whole country was filled with sorrow. Cold and pale lay the Emperor in his magnificent great bed. The whole Court believed him to be dead. Stiff and pale he lay. Everywhere, in all the rooms and corridors, heavy cloth had been laid down in order to deaden the sound of footsteps, the whole palace was still as still could be. But the Emperor was NOT dead yet. Through an open window high up the wall the moon was shining down on the Emperor and the Artificial bird. The poor Emperor could scarcely breathe. It was just as if something was sitting on his chest. It was DEATH, ... the Emperor's good and evil deeds, sitting on his heart gazing down on him now and had put on his head a gold crown and was holding the Emperor's sword in one hand and his splendid banner in the other. Strange faces were peering: "Do you remember that?" And the nightingale sang so beautifully that tears came into the Emperor's eyes, and then the nightingale's singing became even lovelier, and then it went straight to his heart. - they whispered one after the other: "Do you remember?" Close to the window came out a burst of most beautiful singing. It was the little live nightingale perched in a tree; the shapes grew fainter and fainter.

... but the nightingale is really the best of all said the book he was reading. There he sat in his golden chair reading: "But the nightingale is really the best of all." Oh, nightingale!

Yôtin (The Wind)

Sherryl Sewepagaham * · Translation by Bill and Emily Sewepagaham · Roman orthography by Weylon Sewepagaham

Yôtin nîpîhtamak nikamona, nikamona. Yôtin kîpîhtamak, kîpîhtamak nitayamihâwin. Kisemanito, nanâskamon yôtin ohci.

The wind carries songs to me. The wind carries my prayers to you. Creator, I am thankful for this wind.

Forty Words for Yes

Doug Jamieson *

YES There is but one tree With so many limbs and branches And countless twigs and leaves And there are many voices Scattered to many tongues Flung far and wide And like the Tree, there is a single Word But so much noise that it cannot be heard All have a word they can say, they can hear All have a word where the meaning is clear And this word can be known, can be heard Say the word, the one word where we find agreement totally Sing the word that has the strength of the Tree Out of the confusion, hear the silence grow Out of the silence, a hidden truth can show Out of the truth, the one word we need to know Whatever your tongue Sing the word loudly, clearly Wherever the place Raise a voice, open an ear So many streams Feed the rivers of life Time to get back to the wellspring From which all things come forth Together Brooks babble, feed the rivers Towers Babel, rise and crumble Where? Where? Where is the word? Everybody searching, Everybody searching: So many asking, So many asking: What? What? What is the truth? Many are calling, Many are calling: Who? Who? Who's there to help? Voices are rising, Voices are rising: Voices rising: High... but soon to all fall down. Once again some moments of clarity Once again we seek the roots of our humanity Once again we find ourselves waiting for a sign to show Once again we stop ourselves right when it is time to go Once again we fill with wonder and the need to know: Where? Where is the common ground? Now at last a journey with direction Now with only differing inflection Finally arrival at the start Finally speaking out of heart Finally the only word is: "YES!" The word that we all must shout That we may rout the burgeoning "no". "Yes" is the end to end Our journey high and low. "Yes" fills our need For truth and kindness as we go. Many voices Sing in unity The word not lost in translation, Yes! The word is Yes.