Into forest halls
See the Moon is waking
Into forest halls
Clear and cold the night
Crossing paths of time
under vaulted branches
hear the ringing bells
See the lighted candle
Into forest halls
Clear and cold the night ....
Cradle Song
Early Welsh Poem/ Translated by Jane Valencia
Chorus:
Dinogat's cloak, the speckled, speckled one
of martin skins I made it
Chwit, chwit, awhistling
Let us chant, let us sing
When your father used to go hunting,
bundle on his shoulder, cudgel in his hand
he would call his lively hounds:
Giff, Gaff -- catch, catch, fetch, fetch
He would strike a fish from his coracle
as when a lion kills a little creature
When your father would go to the mountains
he would bring back one roebuck, one wild pig, one stag
he would call his lively hounds
Giff, Gaff -- catch, catch, fetch, fetch
One speckled grouse from the moutain
one fish from Derwennyd waterfall
When your father used to go hunting,
bundle on his shoulder, cudgel in his hand
he would call his lively hounds:
Giff, Gaff -- catch, catch, fetch, fetch
Whether wild pig or fox or grove creature
none could escape his dart who hadn't wings to fly.
Calling of the Cows
Lyrics by Jane Valencia
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 started, as they push their noses against us,
Breath sween 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.
Binwag's Lullaby
Lyrics by Debra Knodel
Don't wake my children, don't stir from your slumbers,
I'll whisper of wonders to sweeten your dreams.
The trees are wearing the winter's snowy mantle,
And icy jeweled necklaces decorate the streams.
I'll sing of the North Wind who's chasing his tail;
Whirling and growling, he laughs at the moon.
Although he's strong and he's noisy in midwinter,
His song will soon soften to summer's gentle tune.
Chorus:
Outside Northern Lights dance with the stars
Waltzing over mountains,
Wearing rainbow tiaras and slippers of ice
The Great Bear smiles from her home near Polaris.
She's guarding our passage through winter's enless night.
The first thoughts of berries are formed on frozen branches
Young shoots of grass lie suspended in snow.
The salmon are chanting their spells out int the ocean,
Breaking icy enchantments that stop the river's flow.
Gathering roses one day he came by my garden
Saying, "I was drawn by the sweet scent of the roses you tend.
I'll drop all these if I can but have yours.
For your roses, newly blooming promise delights I seldom enjoy."
His eyes were gray as is a falcon
Face roughened of wandering the distant lands.
But tender was his touch as he admired each rose.
Deftly he broke each flower from its stem.
Time came that I must tend to ripening fields, abandoning roses.
Another I found who would stay through the harvest.
It saddened me that my falcon must fly
But no spirit had he for toiling earth's richness.
This day as the sun lowered in the winter sky
I smiled to see fresh petals blowing across the forgotten path.
And though I smell the scorch, bread burning on the hearth,
I'll wait here in the lengthening shadows,
for I know he returns
he returns to me
tonight
New Year's Day
Lyrics and Music by Jane Valencia
The water looks like the sky
blue into blue
Constellations leaping on 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
Snow On The Summit
© 2000 Jane Valencia/BMI
Snow, snow falls
Snow, snow falls
Flurries of blossoms
A cherry tree sky
Snow, snow falls
Snow, snow falls
White-feathered redwoods
A sillouette of owls
I soar amidst facets of ice
I soar between the crystalline trees
I soar high in the wind, folded in -- and,
Snow ...
Origami fields
Patterns revealed
Snow ...
Midafternoon deer
Browse an invisible feast -- we see
A day of games -- fox and geese
A day -- roads to nowhere mazes
A day -- etchings of angels' wings
Winter air, your secrets whisper -- we hear
Snow ...
One thousand evergreens
Edges aligned
This gift we wish for, we receive
And this valley knows
We know --
Snow