We Are Phoenix (SATB, String Quartet Parts)

1. Imagine

2. In the Beginning

Before land, sea, sky, before all that:
nature was chaos; our cosmos, all chaos;
all the same enormity, all in one;
there was no form, no moon to walk’
the night, no earth to dance with air…

Now let me tell you how things change,
new rising endlessly out of old,
everything altering, form unto form,
let me be the voice of mutability,
the only constant in the world.

– Patricia Monaghan

3. Turning

There comes a time in every fall
before the leaves begin to turn
when blackbirds group and flock and gather
choosing a tree, a branch, together
to click and call and chorus and clamor
announcing the season has come for travel.

Then comes a time when all those birds
without a sound or backward glance
pour from every branch and limb
into the air, as if on a whim
but it’s a dynamic, choreographed mass
a swoop, a swerve, a mystery, a dance

and now the tree stands breathless, amazed
at how it was chosen, how it was changed.

– Julie Cadwallader Staub

4. Nubes Oriebatur: the eruption of Vesuvius

Nubes oriebatur.
(Praecesserat per multos dies tremor terrae.)

Nubes oriebatur, cuius similitudinem et formam non alia
magis arbor quam pinus expresserit.

Nam longissimo velut trunco elata in altum quibusdam ramis
diffundebatur, credo quia recenti spiritu evecta.

Nubes atra et horrenda, ignei spiritus tortis vibratisque
discursibus rupta, in longas flammarum figuras dehiscebat;
fulguribus illae et similes et maiores erant.

Candida interdum, interdum sordida et maculosa
prout terram cineremve sustulerat.

Nec multo post illa nubes descendere in terras, operire maria;
Iam cinis, adhuc tamen rarus.

Mox dies verus; sol etiam effulsit.
Occursabant trepidantibus adhuc oculis
mutata omnia altoque cinere tamquam nive obducta.

– Pliny the Younger, Letters to Tacitus, 61-112 AD
– adapt. TCT

Translation:
A cloud was ascending.
(There had been noticed for many days before a trembling of the earth.)

A cloud was ascending, the appearance of which I cannot give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that of a pine tree.

For it shot up to a great height in the form of a very tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into branches of a sort; Because, I believe, it was occasioned by a sudden gust of air that impelled it.

A black and dreadful cloud, broken with rapid, zigzag flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last were like sheet-lightning, but much larger.

It was sometimes clear and bright and sometimes dark and spotted, according to whether it had picked up earth or cinders.

Soon afterwards, the cloud began to descend, and cover the sea.
The ashes now began to fall upon us, though it was still sparse.

Soon the real day returned, and even the sun shone out. Every object that presented itself to our faltering eyes seemed changed, being covered deep with ashes as if with snow.

– Translated by William Melmoth, with revisions by Anne Groton

5. Digging Up a Rose

I dug up a rose in my garden.
To make room for something new.
Less formal.
Less fussy.
More me.
I dug up a rose.
Dropped it sideways in a broken pot.
And forgot it was there.
Then summer came.
And the old discarded rose
Shocked me with a shock of pink.
With a cloud of old-fashioned blooms.
It refused to let me choose.
Refused to let me deny its value.
But bloomed.
To spite me.
Bloomed.
In spite of me.
Bloomed.
To remind me.
To know my worth.
And to know it most of all.
When sideways in a broken pot.

– Caitlin Vincent

6. To Risk Your Heart

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

– Louise Erdrich

7. Things Worth Praising

Rain. Soft rain. Hard pelting rain. Sleet and snow.
Clouds: white, grey, dark. A spring breeze.
The predictability of stars and moon and sun.

Green small hills. Craggy slopes. Granite cliffs.
Topsoil deep and rich. The melody of rivers.
The powers of tides. The cycle of change.

Industry of bee and worm. Sweet fruit that follows.
Microbes that make cheese. Ones that cure us.
Profound cooperation that begets lichen.

Birdsong carried on wind. The shadow of a horse
against a limestone wall. A dog’s warmth.
Blood. Flesh. Bones. Hearts. Breath.

A friend’s hand, reaching out for help or tea.
A sigh, an honest smile, a body dancing.
Everything that connects and is connected. Everything.

– Patricia Monaghan

8. New Rising Endlessly

Now let me tell you how things change,
new rising endlessly out of old,
everything altering, form unto form,
let me be the voice of mutability,
the only constant in the world.

– Patricia Monaghan

9. Ragnarök

Hagalaz (wrath of nature), Sowilo (sun)…

Dark grows the sun,
and in summer soon
Come mighty storms:
would you know yet more?
Brothers will fight one another
and kill one another
the world will be a hard place to live in.

skeggold, skalmold, (an age of the axe, an age of the sword,)
vindold, vargold, (an age of storms, an age of wolves,)

Before the world sinks in the sea,
there will be no man left who is true to another.

The old tree sighs
when the giant shakes it—
Yggdrasil still stands, (Skelfr Yggdrasils)
but it trembles. (askr standandi.)

The sun turns black,
the earth sinks into the sea,
the bright stars
fall out of the sky.
Flames scorch
the leaves of Yggdrasil,
a great bonfire
reaches to the highest clouds.

Here is a house,
here is a neighborhood.
Here is a street, a door, a room, a window.
Here is a drought, here a beetled pine.
Here is a wildfire leaping from limb to roof.

There is a law of lightning, law of wood.
There is a need to burn, to lose, to grow.
There is the charred scar, there the flying ash.
To dwell is not to shelter, we should know.

Here are the people packing their cars to flee.
Here are the photos in frames, the pets on leashes.
Here are the children bewildered, coughing smoke.
Here are the firemen climbing the hills in the heat.

Berkana (growth), Dagaz (day)…

I see the earth
rise a second time
from out of the sea,
green once more.
Waterfalls flow,
and eagles fly overhead,
hunting for fish
among the mountain peaks.

We are the street, we are the neighborhood.
We are the garden living and dying to bloom.
We are the parched yards, we are the trembling deer.
We are the long walk looking to find our home.

I see the earth rise a second time.
Rise.

– Poetic Edda: Völuspá (41, 46, 55, 57), translated by Dr. Jackson Crawford, sung in English and Old Norse. “The Fires,” by David Mason.

10. I Fall, I Rise

A wonder of biology and stardust combines to form me.
Improbable, yet here I am—trillions of cells with rhythm and life,
each breath and heartbeat a quiet symphony.
Each movement a melody

I hope to keep falling in love with this world again and again,
with every stranger’s kindness,
with every life bent low that finds the strength to rise.
A caterpillar turns inward before it grows wings,
a forest survives and prospers from fallen trees,
and I am transformed by each experience of loss and joy.
When I am broken, my mind rewires,
regrows, together.

We move back and forth between grief and laughter,
each adding meaning to the other.
Alone, now together.
Broken, now whole.
We are fire. We are ash.
We are Phoenix.

Oh, this delicate flight of the soul.
I fall, I rise.
I withdraw, then reach out.
I find myself in love with this intricate,
beautiful world.

– C.J. Nichols

11. Imagine We Are Trees

Imagine we are trees.
Both about to bud
We are itching with tiny leaves
To shake and shade each other with.
We’ve known each other forever,
Weathered all of it.
There, when you lost a limb
I swayed and prayed in my trunk
you’d not go down. We shed
what we no longer need
no longer can hold up
to the light. I’ve seen you
in twilight blue, seen the moon
cradled in your branches.
This morning your canopy
Glazed in tangerine light.
If this isn’t love
I don’t know what is.

– Julia Klatt Singer