Transcendence.
The poem “In Another Place” by contemporary poet Pattiann Rogers imagines a place where we could be fire, where we could be motion, or the design of an orbit against a starry background. The poem pulls back layers of being down to their very essence.
I sought to capture the possibility, cosmic wonder, and magic in Rogers’ writing. The final adagio ends peacefully, luxuriating in warmth.
This setting of In Another Place is suitable for a community, university, or professional choir.
“In Another Place” from Generations by Pattiann Rogers (New York, Penguin, 2004), copyright 2004 by Pattiann Rogers. Used by permission of the author.
Sung here by the Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir - Virtual Singers.
For SATB and Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violins I + II, Viola, Cello, Contrabass, Piano
In Another Place
Outside the realm of breath and bone,
of vision with eyes, outside a sentient
vein of any kind, outside the tangible
or any of those ways we ordinarily tell
ourselves of presence, there may be a place
where one could be fire, for instance,
not a body lit by the light of fire,
not a body hearing the humming furnace
of fire or watching the orange, ash-
rimmed coals of fire fading, but a place
where one might be the fire itself,
if be is the right word for such a state,
if state has definition in such a realm.
Perhaps in this place one might,
if one wished, be merely motion—not
the wind or plains of grasses swathed
by wind, not a canyon wren in flight
passing a cliff edge, gliding straight out
over the echoing blue gorge below, not
the rise and hush of a river at the height
of spring, be none of these but the motion
alone of each, without weight or force,
without shadow, without domain.
One might exist (or some similar
word for being) not as soil or rock
or sea cave, not as any blossom
or animal blustering of the earth
but as its orbit, and not the path itself
but the equation the earth creates against
the starry background of its passages,
exist as the sublime math of the earth
in its revolution, not numbers
or symbols on paper, but the soaring
right of the math, that entity, if entity
is correct in these circumstances,
if circumstance exists in this place,
if place be a concept of equation.
Three horses stand together in the chill
autumn dusk. The lowered heads
of the bay and her sister are touching,
the silver fog of their breaths meeting.
The third, a pinto, stands perpendicular
to the others, faces the haunch of the bay.
Maybe in this place I could be the design
these horses make in relation to one another
against the sky, be the sort of beautiful
purity a design like that can make,
if that is what I am, if I am is anyone.