The poem “A Traversing” by Pattiann Rogers flows with lush and vivid imagery, weaving through bulrushes and reeds seeking clarity.
My setting begins peacefully amongst the trees, journeying through spring waters, building excitement with revelations and culminating in an epiphany of the sky, releasing tension as barriers fall away.
This setting of A Traversing is suitable for a high school, community, or university choir.
“A Traversing” 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 Virtual Chamber Choir.
A Traversing
The easy parting of oaks and hickories,
bays of willows, borders of pine and screens
of bamboo down to the crux, grasses, bulrushes
and reeds parting down to their fundamental
cores, the yielding of murky pond waters,
layer upon layer giving way to the touch
of the right touch, the glassy, clear
spring waters, bone and gristle alike
opening as if opening were ultimate fact,
the parting of reflection allowing passage,
and the cold, amenable skeleton of echo,
the unlatching of marsh becoming as easily
accessible as the unlocking of mercy,
as the revelation of stone splitting
perfectly with the sound of the right
sound, everything, a nubbin of corn,
a particle of power, the epiphany of the sky
relenting, and the sea swinging open
***
like doors of a theater giving entrance
to everyone, no fences, no barriers, no blinds
to the parting of the abyss, not bolted,
not barred from the utmost offering
of the dusk, enigma itself falling away
until all may enter all and pass among them.