About this work:
Songs of Serendipity is a set of three songs on poems written by the composer:
Foothill in May
Alone
among countless smooth boulders
and tall barky trunks,
listening
as a creek slides in unmeasured rhythm
down a soft cliff,
then looking up as wings flutter,
pausing on a bright branch
beneath a boundary newly green
at the opening of undimensional blueness.
Commuter Station
These rails,
which connect the horizon of from
with the far-off to,
rest on wood on crushed rock
beside asphalt and benches
and people who stand or sit and wait to go.
A fence, mirror-like,
mediates our side and its reflection—
rails, rock, benches, people,
with from and to reversed.
Unshaded, the air is hot and still.
Nothing moves between from and to
as the time is passing.
Then, unannounced,
comes a flicker of yellow,
a delicate dart and flutter
as butterfly wings cross the tracks.
Sunset Near Home
Low sun, rising moon,
tall trees glowing,
a clean, pale sky behind.
As earth slowly turns the light down,
leaves flap gently,
birds eat and sing.
The moon brightens, lingers
in this space so sweetly charmed
the common seems exceptional.