Program Notes for

Concerto with Foxes, Deer

and Other Wild Ones

This home movie evolved from a group of video clips of the wild life I took around our home. The sense of home and one’s territory and how we relate to it becomes the focus of this set of poems.

This is also a music video poem. It is composed in 5 movements like the beats of first line of a haiku. The animals serve as contrasting elements to the orchestral composition. This multi-layered poem focuses on boundary issues--venturing into new territory, the need to communicate when separate, love and the risks of getting close, and making appropriate responses. The poem is musical so alliteration, assonance, and rhyme are used throughout except in the legal description of immigration policy. The video “says it with flowers,” the shapes of which reflect the brass section. Sometimes flowers intrude into the story, and other times they complete the ABA form as in the third movement.

The first movement is free-form orchestral improvisation, like other wild ones to come. This poem poses Keat’s question about beauty and truth. Does it lie in the eyes of the beholder? In art lies are often more truthful than reality, for example, *It is said that Rimsky Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee captures the essence of a bee flying better than a recording. The “iiii’s,” besides being a rhyme motif, also suggest the narcissistic point of view of the border guard, and all who see only what they have to lose at the border. The male and female voice implies sexuality. The wail of the trumpet suggests the pain of love gone wrong, possibly lovers separated by immigration issues. Finally the artist bears witness to what goes before him.

The second movement, is in three parts, like three lines of a haiku. The music here is the only strictly composed piece. It is in 5/4 and 7/4 time like the line beats of a haiku. Bordering both sides of immigration law are two haiku, a Japanese import we have embraced. This border guard sits motionless at the side of a stream. The only movement is in the handheld camera and the water passing by. Like our Rio Grande, water creates a moat or barrier.  Fuwa's barrier is one of the three barriers or checking stations in Japan that went out of use in 789 AD. Fuwa also means softly. The guard is a doe, barely moving, hardly frightening to the foxes racing across the fields. But it suggests a contradictory immigration policy that tries to prevent you from crossing. Yet if you get over to the other side, you may become entitled to education and health care. Like love, boundaries are there to be overcome with creative approaches, and when they are surprising things can happen. Moreover, when you cross the border and have a child, that child becomes a U.S. citizen. Creativity too occurs at the border when/where rules and customs are broken.

The third movement Empty Chairs suggests those who are separate need to come together to talk. Then middle “B” section separates the flowers. Boundaries are artificial, we all share life, we are mostly water. We are what separates us. We are not statuesque aliens, freeze-dried, approaching one another without speaking. The pictures from the art gallery also hark back to the question of beauty and truth in the first movement.

The forth movement, the title, Thieves, suggests it is more than deer invading a garden. The movement is a minuet, a slow dance in 6/8 time. Saying it with flowers, it returns to the theme of love and sexuality…and the fears we all have about our boundaries being breached and becoming intimate, and by implication, immigration policy that separates the haves from the have-nots, and the fears that our garden will be totally cleaned out. Yet it also suggests the paradoxical point that when we are in love, it is hard to deny the lover anything.

The last movement, Where is wisdom?, takes a new position on foreigners. It reminds us that native Americans and native trees were t/here before us, and we are the immigrants. Unlike the early settlers who chopped down those in the way, we need to support the other; we need to embrace the other. Thus the scene with the deck was built around the tree, braced against the wind, not cut down. Can we secure the homeland with love? Can we make music with our differences?

Concerto

with

Foxes and Deer

1st Movement

Allegretto

Denizens

catalpa blooms

leap from leaves

truth lies

[which is it?]

to skies

of soft blue

in the iiii’s

of behold

urban foxes

bound

with sanguine tales

of another hue

playful sounds

of how we met

too soon pale

with deep regret

petunias trumpet

a purple tune

got your

green card?

while deer wander

into thickets

do does do

what you do?

dip

into white water

still

sly

and I am close

to the wild within

next witness

2nd Movement

Largo e Presto

Fuwa’s Barriers

Does wait by water

while foxes dart across fields—

petunias dance

Under Title 8 Section 1325 of the U.S. Code, "Improper Entry by Alien," any citizen of any country other than the United States who:

enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers;

or eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers;

or attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact;

has committed a federal crime.

Does regarding red lights

while foxes dart, unguarded flee--

green beyond borders?

Far Beyond Borders

Does watching me watch

you -- foxes dart across fields--

see beyond borders?

Does watching me watch

you – raptured then released

like trout in the stream

3d Movement

Andantino semplice

Empty Chairs

Inside or outside,

young or old,

familiar or strange,

friend or foe,

disabled or whole,

native or foreign,

domestic or wild,

we are not aliens;

water that divides us

flows through our veins.

We must talk

fill the chairs;

we can’t just

sleep on it.

4th Movement

Menuetto

Thieves

She stole

into my life,

took [from] me

in broad daylight.

Her neck,

long and elegant,

She was

always on guard,

Wild thing,

adorned in fur,

she devoured me,

my gold and rubies--

perfume

filled the air;

Yet it soon

became clear:

so captivated--

I could not,

deny her.

I wanted to shout

as she started

to leave,

“It is better to give

than to receive,

but you completely

cleaned me out,

my dear.”

5^th Movement

Moderato

Where is wisdom?

Underneath

where there’s support

no matter how

bent or burdened,

where the other

is embraced,

native or not,

where there's

tongued kisses,

however eyed.

Let’s secure the homeland

with a new song,

develop new motifs,

not cancel them out.

Consonance needs dissonance,

the familiar the strange.

Let the music begin.