Mysteries mounting up on this definitely, paradoxically Good Friday --
delving,
plowing through, and finishing the Chronicle section of the April 2008 21st-Century Music (21st-centurymusic.com / 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com) and beginning
Vocal Sonatina No. 2 ("Vatsyayana"): II. About a Wife.
Get carried away, and it's almost dark when passing The Cowboy Vintner, or shall we say,
as Li Po and
Harry Partch, Before the Cask of Wine
The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes,
Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl.
The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together.
You pretty girl, wine-flushed
Your rosy face is rosier still.
How long may the peach and plum trees flower
By the green-painted house?
The fleeting light deceives man,
Brings soon the stumbling age.
Rise and dance
In the westering sun,
While the urge of youthful years is yet unsubdued!
What avails to lament after one's hair has turned white like silken threads?
Seems appropriate verse in the beautifully failing light
at the edge of the suburbs
where Castle Peak is framed by dark verge.
Like the hours between 12 and 3 in the old story,
via the stations of the crossed power lines dolorosa illuminescent,
we watch the dying away of visibility in dark palm
and deciduous n'
live oaks
and houses
and portals
and portals of houses.
There's nothing for it; fallen into shadow of barbed wire
in crosshairs of tail-lights and moon.
Back in residence, finish About a Wife -- bitonal, with vocal melody black-note anhemitonic pentatonic from Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite: III. Princess of the Pagodas, of all notions; accompaniment C mixolydian with e mixolydian midsection on Muzio Clementi Sonatina No. 2: II with the faintest aura of tabla troped on Mice and Men: Act III, God almighty, that dog stinks and a breath of Carl Orff Carmina Burana love song (the chromatic descending oboe and children's chorus).
Lyrics, severely abbreviated from Book IV of the Kama Sutra
Virtuous women
Who have affection
Revere the Household Gods
Should avoid company
Beggars and mendicants
Unchaste and
Roguish and
Soothsayers
And witches
Wives whether they be
Noble born or remarried
Aquire the Dharma Artha Kama
And generally keep their husbands happy
