A lone cherry tree stood near a driveway.
The white blossoms were in full splendor.
Had my father not noted the beauty,
I would have missed it altogether.
Some pass by without a glance,
Others notice, but fail to appreciate.
Unshading my eyes, I can see the cherry blossoms’ warm greeting.
The trees stood tall against the overcast sky,
Which permitted no light to glaze the scene.
The rain had stopped, but it it dripped down the trees, off their branches,
Onto the damp ground, on which wet leaves were carelessly scattered.
A heavy stillness hung in the air,
A pressure too great to bear.
A stick planted upright in a mound of soil
Marks the grave of an old friend.
Like glittery sparkling diamonds, they fascinate me.
Enchanted, I can only gaze upon what is not mine.
Dawn breaks, and the sun blazes over the horizon’s edge.
Dusk falls, and the veil of night envelops all.
The glory of life peals throughout the bright air.
The toll of death looms dangerously near.
Dew shimmers on the petals of flowers.
A stifled groan begins to fade.
And the song of birds sparkles and glimmers.
Into a final sigh of relief.
Echoes, I hear them, I know them well. they are mine.
A plea goes unnoticed,
A call goes unanswered,
A cry is ignored.
It just resonates, reverberating back and forth,
It echoes and echoes, and echoes and echoes.
And so it will go endlessly,
Until the world wakes and takes notice.
But the world is oblivious to my desire’s voice,
It echoes and echoes and echoes forever.
She sings, she sings,
O joyous songbird, sweet little lark,
You are beautiful and your song even more so.
You sing of life.
But in all its intricacy, life is not as fair, as pleasant as your soothing voice.
You smooth the edges, soften the blows, shorten the blades.
I love your voice, and though your melody is a dream,
You are truly beautiful.
One night I danced with the moon, her soft glow was all around me.
I held her close, and we were happy.
But the wind swept between us, pushing us apart,
And though we both still danced, we danced alone.
Occasional fog drifted about, obscuring my view, blocking communication.
After a particular cloud had passed,
She was gone, leaving a great gap in my dark sky.
Gentle waves roll and evergreens sway in a peaceful breeze.
The brilliant sun glimmers and plays upon the scene.
Lightning flashes across the pale grey sky,
And for an instant bathes everything in a burst of brilliant white light.
There is silence, though,
Except for the delicate touch of raindrops on the window.
The beads of rain on the glass stream down like tears,
And I think of you,
Wishing you were here next to me,
So we could spend this moment together.
A pair of eyes, sparkling, imaginative portals to a world
Where reality and fantasy mate.
Presents, decorated boxes, the ribbons loosen and fall away,
The colored paper unseams itself, revealing — nothing? Look carefully.
The ribbons flow gracefully, swirling, amidst the colorful paper backdrop,
Melting, blending into a mélange of glowing hues,
Silent, comfortable.
They wash upon the sand, under the brilliant rays of the sun.
Seagulls circle overhead, calling out their thoughts.
Clouds adorn the blue sky, appearing as marshmallows on the end of a stick, over a campfire,
defense from the black of night.
The sun rises, dawn has come.
I turn my head to the side and gaze into them, soft and shimmering,
A pair of eyes.
PDF: Beyond_the_Mirror-sample.pdf
My son Josh took a creative writing course in high school, and these poems are from that time. It was not a happy time for him, and much of the poetry was brooding and pessimistic. I selected ten of the least dark and set about writing a song cycle for his brother Adam’s voice.
This was my first attempt at writing for piano accompaniment, and it came slowly. Gradually I began to get the hang of setting the stage for the soloist, reinforcing the poetic text and subtly providing the soloist pitches, all at the same time.
Adam performed “The Cherry Tree” at his 1994 Cornell senior recital. At that point the cycle was less than half done. I completed it in 1997, and he performed it at a recital in Bethesda, Md. in 2000 with his friend and mentor Marc Taslit at the piano, and Josh and my wife Carol with me in the audience, the first of several family musical collaborations.
Never have I been so nervous before a performance, and I wasn’t even performing. But not only had I worked on the composition for months and was baring my musical soul; it put me in greater touch with the angst Josh was experiencing.
Since then I have performed “The Cherry Tree” several times, including as an audition piece. Typically, I get compliments on the song itself, but less so on my performance of it.
“The Cherry Tree” recounts an actual walk Josh and I shared. It was an achingly lovely April day and we were in no hurry. We saw the tree, at peak bloom, beside the GEICO warehouse less than half a mile from our house, and we studied the tree from every angle. The leisurely andante gives way to a quicker tempo as the passersby either ignore or do not savor the beauty of the cherry blossoms; the poem then returns to the original mood and tempo.
“Grave Scene” recounts the death of our first cat, Poldy, in 1990. Josh plays fast and loose with the facts; it was a chilly but clear November day, and Poldy, age 20 and barely mobile, was euthanized at the vet’s office, not buried in the yard. The last four sung notes, D♭-C-B♭-A, constitute a tragic motif that recurs throughout the cycle.
“Orbs” is one of several poems expressing longing for what is beyond reach, using here the metaphor of precious stones, evoked by the high arpeggiated figures in the piano. The motif cited above again appears.
“Life” and “Death” occurred to me as recitatives, each progressing harmonically downward by full steps. Later in the cycle they recur as one piece and progress downward by half steps. This is all very nerdy, which is what Josh had in mind all along. I chose harmonic progressions so that the songs can be performed either sequentially or interleaved, with alternating measures. On the words “sparkles and glimmers” I introduced another motif, E♭-C-E♭-B♭-A♭, which recurs in “Sea and Forest” and (slightly modified) “Beyond the Mirror” on similar texts.
“Echoes” also expresses longing for the unattainable. It leans heavily on fourth intervals, especially those in descending triplets in the final phrase.
“Songbird” begins as an unabashed love song, with lush glissando seventh chords in the piano. But the poet cannot trust the emotion, and the songbird is called upon not to reciprocate love but to protect from dark threats. Suddenly the poem brushes aside the menace and returns to the original love song — but not without a touch of mistrust.
“Moondance” also begins in a positive way, an uptempo dance, but the poet and his partner are separated by the clouds. Here I wrote, for the first and last time, a twelve-tone series, remembering to write the piano part so as to help the soloist find his pitches.
“Sea and Forest” leaves the emotions aside and expresses the peacefulness of land meeting water. The 6/8 meter was an obvious choice. Absent are the dark emotions and the motifs which express them.
“Storm” begins with jagged harmonies suggesting lightning and thunder, but all is suddenly quiet and the themes of longing and loneliness return. The piece begins and ends in E major but passes through quite a few tonalities along the way.
“Beyond the Mirror” (the finale) runs nearly four minutes, by far the longest song in the cycle. The poem itself is cyclic, a kind of dream sequence that shifts from one scene to another, finally returning to the pair of eyes from where it began. “Soft and shimmering.” Has he finally found love, or is his gaze merely at the mirror?
The fugato introduction to the piece returns, and the conclusion reflects the prior movements in reverse order, always retaining the 7/8 meter of the finale.