Duration: 5 minutes
Wake was created in collaboration with flutist and poet Wayla Chambo, who commissioned the work as part of her dissertation series “The Transcript Project.” In this series, she invited composers to write a piece for solo flute based on one of her poems. When I first read her poem “Wake”, I was instantly transported by the richness of the natural world that her language evokes. I chose this poem in part because of the sensual and deeply spiritual connection to the land that she explores, which posed questions I had at the time barely begun to form. The vivid imagery of the river, mountain, and fog in the opening lines reminded me of traditional Japanese paintings, so I crafted the opening phrases with the sound of the shakuhachi in mind. But the poem seemed to demand something more than aesthetic appreciation with the titular exhortation to “wake” – perhaps into a way of being that is more present with the fullness of the world around us: natural, spiritual, and relational. With this in mind, I set out to explore as much of the expressive world of the alto flute as possible in five brief minutes, and to surrender the musical narrative to the poem’s story. I invite you to read the poem along with the music, or to simply listen and allow your imagination to create its own story.
Recording
Performed by Wayla Chambo, alto flute.
Text
There is a river swollen with new life
and fog lifting like breath across the mountain.
Still, brown, but the green time’s coming soon
and I can feel it, everything is gathering
its strength for one long spring into the sunlight.
Resurrection is a deep, glad song:
no doctrine, but a stirring in the body.
High above, grey shivers into blue,
tall branches toss and flutter, golden-fringed,
geese rising up clamoring and then we’re off
a warm, wet wind, a laughing ululating,
keening dash into a sudden stillness
in each other’s arms. I smell myself
all tangled in her hair with this wild morning.
We don’t talk about love, but her body feels like home.
I know this place. And this is holy water,
this, the long curve of her thigh, strong belly,
hair a spicy curtain, neck becoming
shoulder, collarbone and breast with no
hard lines. Her skin as soft as mine.
I drink, a thirst too deep for caution rising,
thirst that calls me back to what I need,
the sweet ache through the wildest part of me.
Drink and be whole, as if it were all this:
the morning pouring between us, we’re transparent,
I breathe her in, I will not ask, pretend
her touch is light enough to leave no mark
not falling, flying through this burning dark.
~ Wayla Chambo