A Traversing

May 2023. SATB (divisi) and piano / 6:30

Score PDF

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.