A Brazilian Symphony for Elbio Barilari, composer
My Home is an open window,
And no one sleeps there.
Without feet, a map, a score—
I am petals dropping into a tempo.
Doors to deepest earth ajar–
I sing long before my birth
falling inside a tropical rainforest
softly percussive—all sound and ceremony.
Out of a loamy fragrance, a melody
begins—as my fingers awaken—
plucking my guitar, I am alive
inside a Brazilian Symphony.
Let there be no epitaph for the storm.
A conduct all of heaven and earth
into one Time—
a Perfect Thunder, a Perfect Light.
Carol Feiser Laque
©2012
From Latin American Music Based on Popular Genres
Prelude and Fugue/Primitive Samba
Title: Preludio e Fuga
Composer: Edino Krieger
Pianist: Alexandre Dossin
She steps out of pools
one ripple after another
fallen pure as
showers are gathered,
and she memorizes
the morning rainfall.
Her damp fingers point
full of pounding blood
as noon slants her
burning legs in the
swarming sunlight
Each step embers and remembers
as a samba circles
from inside her dreams
more that alive
into a green gesture from
when she was once green
An old woman now
whom Time seizes
into circles around her;
she moves gently back
into dawn from dusk.
Out of dearth opening
her lips part red
breathing worlds
curling a sacred samba
from her hips.
Out of death forever
an ancient samba
newly born from rain
showers into noon scorching
Her passion slides
into the dance and
her body remembers
to move like a flame
when Time opened her
and she was born a woman.
Carol Feiser Laque
© 2012
From Latin American Music Based on Popular Genres
A Mayan Mythic Symphony
Title: Popol Vuh: The Maya Creation
Composer: Alberto Ginastera
Conductor: Gisele Ben-Dor
Orchestra: BBC National Orchestra of Wales
An ancient Silence shrugs
and moans—hissing
from a volcano—temples
spilling orange rock
liquid as horns swell,
and ebb while players
emerge and echo jungle ruins from
a magnificent fog.
Lava slips while jaguars,
flutes stream over the sea,
and birds flock awake on land—
astonished from nesting—
they gather before the first day.
Hands pounding, carving
dusty with language
draw and play black with a sweet violin—
the trill creshendos a
soaring solo.
Smoky, disappearing Time begins
into a yearning harmony.
Who can endure spectrums of
contagions drums swelling
to pitch the triumph
while trumpets sound—
all creation swarms terraces
from the marshy miasma of fantasy
with a life chanting,
clapping dissonance as
percussion circles
With birds on warm
updrafts—this vapor
divides man made
sound and silence
gathering distant, future fossils.
The future is a shadow walking—
reaching into brooding airy temples
reaching into black stone
past yellow drenched reaching—
conducting windy rage
in golding waves.
The melody smears silence
as trumpets call triumphant—
a prehistoric language
back from forever
into a Now Mayan movement.
All animals and humanity
merge tenderly, pre Columbian
assaulting thoughtfulness
holding close, sacrificing
Mesoamerica into
A round, classic calendar
found in a Guatemalan rainforest
music swells black, sly blue
into everything, everyone, nothing fully—
Until in one prophetic moment,
Beyond all sound,
a Guatemalan doomsday
is gracefully gathered
magically beyond a symphonic roar
into one apocalyptic Embrace.
Carol Feiser Laque
©2012
Friend and listener of Fiesta, Carol Feiser Laque is also a local poet. She received her undergraduate degree at Wittenberg College and her M.A. in English at the University of Cincinnati. Here she has written three poems to music featured on Fiesta. For more of her work, visit Carol Laque
Thanks to Carol for these poems and to Katie Burns for helping with this blog.
And a special thanks to Joyce Saxon for the lovely lunches that have lead to these poems!
-Cydne and Elbio
