Returning

Tonight is the first rehearsal for my choral piece, Returning. My friend Tammy is putting it on her graduate conducting recital. I actually wrote the piece in July.

Returning is in a tribal style, unlike most concert works. It's compositionally very simple, the idea being that you just fall into the mindset--if you allow yourself to. I know most of the audience will not enjoy it, because they will be picking it apart, and wondering why I didn't make it more complicated. I did not write the piece for them. I wrote it for those who appreciate the genre like I do. I wrote it for those who can appreciate the text.

I wrote the poem myself, and set the words in a fictitious language. I primarily chose vowels and consonants that I wanted for each note, but I did put a lot of care into designing the "language" so it is not just gibberish. It sounds like a tribal language, thus the text will appear in the program notes as a "translation." Not citing myself as the author, the effect will be ambiguous. Most of the audience will probably assume that I actually found a poem in some African language and set the text. Three reasons why I did this: first, I simply couldn't find a poem anywhere that said what I wanted to say; second, I don't think I should set text in a language I'm not fluent in (unless I completely fabricate it); third, people tend to take a poem less seriously when they know it wasn't written by a poet. If some punk from Missouri writes this, it's pretentious and sophomoric. If it's foreign, suddenly it's the most beautiful thing ever.

So here's the English translation of the poem:

I remember the way the world used to be,
The way it once appeared to me.
How I long to return to that place!

There is peace in nature,
So far away from all the fighting.
I will take sanctuary in the wild
Until I can recall how I once loved the world.

The stillness of the blue sky,
The rolling hills of green,
The timeless sea breeze,
The golden flood of dusk,
The rumbling of distant thunder—
I have long forgotten this gentle beauty.

Now I return to the silence,
Turning my back on the endless strife.
The wind will carry away my troubles.

I will find this love again.
In time, my peace will return.