Vashon Feature: August 2002
Click here for the Call to Vashon or for the Vashon Link Resources
Jane Valencia:
harpist, bookmaker, poet, general renaissance woman!
Yah!!!! We got Jane to let us feature her art, songs, and poetry here in the Vashon Feature this month --AND-- she let me quiz her for a Behind The Scenes interview which you can also read this month in our KotaPress Poetry Journal. Jane is so talented and so gracious and so generous! It's very exciting to be sharing her work and insights will all our Kota readers. Enjoy!!
SONG
"Calling Of The Cows" - One afternoon in the Sonoma County hills a bagpiper played, and I watched as cows responded to the music and came to listen! The scene inspired this poem/lyric, which was the first of mine I ever set to music. Listen for the "bagpipe", played on oboe (by me) and cello.
Click here to download the MP3 of "Calling of the Cows"
"Bodach Beag A Loinean" (The Little Old Man of the Pond) - This
one is a fun nonsense song from Cape Breton Island in Canada and sung
in Scots Gaelic.
Click here to download the MP3 of "Bodach Beag A Loinean"
Poetry & Lyrics
Recorded on the Forest CD
Calling of the Cows
The autumn gray is alive
As we follow the pipes to the fields
Mountains echo, fog shapes the moss
Cows gather, drawn by the sound
And they listen
Ears forward, eyes fierce, mud on their hooves
We're startled, as they push their noses against us,
Breath sweet on our hands.
We hear the dark voices in the sky
And the oaks weaving their long slow words.
A song long lost rises through us
We open our mouths -- singing.
Recorded on the RoseGarden CD
New Year's Day
The water looks like the sky
blue into blue
Constellations leaping in the whitecaps
Fields on the headlands, ferns
bunches of yellow flowers
--I don't know what they are
Logs on the shore below
exhausted by the tide
You and I eating lunch, sandwich stuffed with
time
this giant's bench we share
Stars flash, in and out of existence
time at the end of time
--my mind,
journey there with me, it's yours
"Moon Carol" isn't recorded yet, but appears in the ISLAND web
book.
MOON CAROL
Quiet night
blue snow
hidden moon twirls a skein of light
Snow falls
soft woollen coins
drifting between antler branches
A Christmas rose unfurls
from her clouded petticoats
she dyes petals within silent ponds
Wait here! This mystery
threads interlace paths
within a loom of trees
Branches shuttle
verses into cloth
stretching music across the sky
Moon! Your footfalls
on the new-woven snow
reveal patterns in this winter grove
Editor's note: To learn more about Jane, make sure you check out our Behind The Scenes interview with her in this month's KotaPress Poetry Journal!!!
And be sure to check out Jane's websites at:
