By the Cauldron [in your hips]

for soprano, clarinet, and Marimba

2022

Commissioned by the composer collective Kinds of Kings for their 2022 Bouman Fellowship and premiered by Sputter Box.

“by the cauldron [in your hips]” reaches for healing through time. 

It is a rushing forward, a pulling back, a leaping, a trusting, a falling through and drifting in timelessness, where somewhere, all I thought was irreparable can shift, can churn, can be restored. In many ways, “by the cauldron” is inspired by something a spiritual mentor told me many years ago — "It's the gentle lapping of the waves that turns the stone into sand."

Text:

Falling through this animate body
Washed ashore of marrow memory.
Graciousness is never so finite,
breathe with me and circle your time.

Burst knuckles on the edge of bone
Blossom iron and craggy stone,
Belly lapping unto your spine
Memory unbinding with each cry,
Your feet remember long before
Spirals within the circle's core.

Somewhere
in this becoming
You will remember, create —
Tremble on the ocean walls 
of rib cage

Falling into —
For now,
lose time
wordlessness

For now,
home.