Measured Sands| 7'
SATB Chorus, Harp, Cello & Piano
Measured Sands was commissioned and premiered by the Green Lake Festival of Music Composer Residency (John C. Hughes, conductor). This score will be available soon from Graphite Publishing.
Reference recording: "sh" transforming to "ff," as at rehearsal B.
MEASURED SANDS
Still afraid to touch down
in murky waters, I return
to the place that reveals me
to myself.
We were children saying
someday we’ll be here
with our children.
Our desire to come back
was barnacled with wanting
as the rock by which
we measured the tide.
Younger, we dug for clams
on sandbars, found the sand
was greyer, yielding, darker,
only when we dug deeper.
I imagined, here, I’d hold
a daughter. Now, my brother
swims with his son.
The water level’s higher
in the bay, the ocean
hardly covering the rock.
This place holds every tide,
the daughter she lost.
It offers up each empty shell,
each immutable stone,
the memories we buried
in the sand, greyer, yielding,
darker the deeper we dig.
—Dale Trumbore
