Name: The Wild Iris Song Cycle: 2. Retreating Light
Duration: P00H02M59S
Description: The first of a cycle of three songs written in 2007, set to poetry from Louise Glück's book, "The Wild Iris".

The Wild Iris Song Cycle: 2. Retreating Light

from Skyfire: An Opera in One Act and Other Student Works by Heidi Fivash

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The first of a cycle of three songs written in 2007, set to poetry from Louise Glück's book, "The Wild Iris".

lyrics

II. Retreating Light

You were like very young children,
always waiting for a story.
And I’d been through it all too many times;
I was tired of telling stories.
So I gave you the pencil and paper.
I gave you pens made of reeds I had gathered myself,
afternoons in the dense meadows.
I told you, write your own story.
After all those years of listening I thought you’d know what a story was.
All you could do was weep.
You wanted everything told to you and nothing thought through yourselves.
Then I realized you couldn’t think with any real boldness or passion;
you hadn’t had your own lives yet, your own tragedies.
So I gave you lives, I gave you tragedies,
because apparently tools alone weren’t enough.
You will never know how deeply it pleases me
to see you sitting there like independent beings,
to see you dreaming by the open window,
holding the pencils I gave to you until the summer morning disappears into writing.
Creation has brought you great excitement, as I knew it would,
as it does in the beginning.
And I am free to do as I please now,
to attend to other things,
in confidence you have no need of me.

credits

from Skyfire: An Opera in One Act and Other Student Works, released April 25, 2010
Erin Dodge, soprano
Katie O'Rourke, piano

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about

Heidi Fivash Seattle, Washington

Heidi creates music in many forms. She studied music composition at Western Washington University where she earned several awards and scholarships for piano and composition, including being named the Presser Scholar, the highest honor for music majors. She currently works as a piano teacher and a piano tuner serving the greater Seattle area. ... more

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