• Instrumentation: solo voice

• Duration: 3.5’

PROGRAM NOTE

A meditation on both the fleeting nature of this life and the eternal cycle of many lives, Lake Song, here in an arrangement for solo voice, is the last in a cycle of songs for two voices on poems by Colette Inez commissioned by The ASCAP Foundation/Charles Kingsford Fund; it is dedicated to film artist Holen Sabrina Kahn, my friend and collaborator, and her new husband Michael as they begin their journey together.      —Gilda Lyons

Lake Song

Every day our name is changed,

say stones colliding into waves.

Go read our names on the shore,

say waves colliding into stones.

Birds over water call their names

to each other again and again

to say where they are.

Where have you been, my small bird?

I know our names will change one day

to stones in a field 

of anemones and lavender.

Before you read the farthest wave,

before our shadows disappear

in a starry blur, call out your name

to say where we are.

                                    — Colette Inez

Poetry Copyright © 2003 Colette Inez, used by permission.