Fragments: Three Songs of Hope

For soprano voice and piano

Written in 2003 for soprano Janeanne Houston.

NOTES
Fragments was written during the Iraq War of 2003. Three poems (paraphrase translations by the composer) come from three parts of the world in which the US has found itself at war: Vietnam, The Middle East, and Europe. Sung from a woman's point of view, they question the male values of war and glory, and focus instead on home, heart and faith.

TEXTS

1)  TROUBLE
When the dust of the world blows wild
The lovely ones must suffer.
Lord of the far blue land-
For what purpose has this trouble come?

Moonlight trembles to the beat of the drum.
The watchfires reach to the high clouds.
At midnight, the emperor draws his jeweled sword;
A proclamation, and the war is on.

Young hero, you put down your pen and ink
And, appareled in arrows, seize your bright shield.
Your heart has wars to win.
You fling your wine cup down and point your spear
At the cave of the tiger.

I watch your footsteps vanish.
My heart follows like the moon.

You go forth, I return home.
Each of us looks around and is alone.
Lost, amid blue cloud and green mountain.

from "Song of the War Wife"
Dang Tran Con (Vietnam, 18th century)

2)  LOVE
How can pain be softened?
Too much loss, I tremble.
Love is a small bird tied by a child
Sipping the lake of death.
The child goes on with his game,
Mindless of the bird's pain
And the wings that cannot fly.

In this world there are a thousand roads.
But without a heart, where can one go?

from "Poems of Majnun Laila"
(anonymous, Arabia, 7th century)

3)  PEACE

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