Songs for the Falling Angel

Prologue: The Song of the Falling Angel

It may be ten lifetimes or more
before the Johnstones, Maxwells, Bells and Jardines
find the song they need for the Falling Angel.

First will come a hymn to something like a cross
but buckled, burning in the sky and falling –
falling on the hill, the flock and everyone.

How, with her descent, that year died young:
the second sings a coronach of stars scattered
like seed and snow – on old year’s immolation.

The third will be the love-song of the Angel,
of the sunstorm deep inside, her broken heart,
and how she fell to earth, made mortal and fecund.

They will sing for the fourth a psalm about shadows
and shepherds and valleys, about green fields
and a quiet river where she used to walk.

The fifth sings a satire of wise men with gifts:
a bagful of lenses has one, a microphone
phallus, another; the last, a crocodile wallet.

In the sixth lifetime the children kindle beacon fires
for the turning winter and chant about a winged boy
and an old dead god who glared at him.

In the carol of the seventh, the Falling Angel
is the herald of another cycle
of revelation; born in a gravedigger’s hut.

The eighth song of the Falling Angel
is an old ballad of rural violation,
lost innocence, experience and rebirth.

A chorus for a different dawn will follow, the ninth,
where all the birds they see are pinioned yet
a new sun seems to rise from the Angel’s head.

With the tenth song they free the fire-bringer
from his rock and praise all falling angels
for the discord and the love they bring to earth.

And, even then, will they have it, these people
of the borderlands? The Falling Angel’s final
song is a lullaby for anxious parents.

Libretto: Songs for the Falling Angel

1 Processional (choir)

Speakers, listen. Healing sleep
and peaceful dreams in dead of night
have shown again upon the sky
a tree that shrouds the earth in light.
Listen, all, to healing sleep
and peaceful dreams in dead of night.

See the tree upon the sky:
a golden axis shining down,
garnets on its panning limbs,
its bole and on its glowing crown.
Listen, all, to healing sleep
and peaceful dreams in dead of night.

2 Angel’s Love Song (girl/soprano)

I am a shard of light inside a bowl.
I am a green tree waiting by a stream.
I am a song that hankers for a voice.
I am a bruise of darkness in a dream.

While the forest flowers prepare to rest,
I wait behind the shadows of the sun
and leaflorn trees, and watch the one clear stream
which has no stain of sunset in its depths.
I see a clearing to the forest floor
and there the stream runs fresh before a stone
and on the stone there lies a sleeping man
in dreams which will not heal without my care.
A bowl is broken here upon the bank
– how many others are there lying here?
Without my care he’ll stay in restive sleep.
Without my care he’ll wither on the stone.
Without his care I’m lost upon the sky.
Without his care I’ll die behind the sun.

I am a shard of light inside a bowl.
I am a green tree waiting by a stream.
I am a song that hankers for a vice.
I am a seed of darkness in a dream.

3 A Sun Storm (soprano/choir)

A Bright Angel’s love song
makes cities of deserts,
cathedrals of mountains
and bridges of marshland.
A Bright Angel’s love song
brings people together
to sing from the heart
at the borders of living
where song can be all that endures.

The Bright Angel’s love song,
The Dark Angel’s love song
is one song
and one song
– the same song
– A SUN STORM.

A sun storm;
when love breaks
its heart stops
and love’s tide
(the blood tide)
abandons its shore.

The Dark Angel’s love song
miscarries its burden
of children, miscarries
its burden to freedom.
The Dark Angel’s love song
brings people together
to cry from the heart
at the borders of living
where cries can be all that endures.

And now hear
how love breaks
how hearts stop
when love’s tide
(the blood tide)
abandons its shore.

The Dark Angel’s love song,
the Bright Angel’s love song
is one song
and one song
– the same song
– A SUN STORM.

The Dark Angel’s falling,
the Bright Angel’s falling
is one fall
and one fall
– the same fall
– SACRIFICE.

4 Immolation/Fists of Darkness (soprano/choir)

The year dies ten days young
and takes to its heart
some children of other years.

The only witness
is the whisper of snow
between the sky and the sea.

I am released,
burning, burning,
burning.

This is a new silence
– the first of many such silences
between tears.

(She knew the sun.)
Fists of darkness hit her.
Tightly they held her hair.
Fingers of heat prised her open
and touched her with scalpels of air.

5 She Knew The Sun (choir/soprano)

For half a year she knew the sun
raging in her breast
and when it seized her heart at last
she fell towards the earth.

For half a year I knew the sun
raging in her breast
and when it seized my heart at last
I fell towards the earth.

She knew the sun –
it raged inside her breast.
The sun was love
and love was strength.
And love was powerlessness.

She knew the sun –
it raged inside her breast.
The sun was love
and love was heart.
And love was heartlessness.

She knew the sun –
it raged inside her breast.
The Sun was love
and love was hope.
And love was hopelessness.

She knew the sun.

When all I wanted was
to give my power to you –
you chose dominion over me.

When all I wanted was
to give my heart to you –
you pout a fist of stone where it should be.

When all I wanted was
to give my hope to you –
you chose dependency on fear.

The sun was love
and life
and lifelessness.
She knew the sun.

When all I wanted was
to give my life to you –
you drew around you boundaries of death.

6 Take Me In (Destroying Angel) (girl)

Listen, speakers,
I was a spore in heaven’s air
before I settled in this ground.
Move apart the leaves and mould
and, by my bruises, you will know
you’ve found an angel.
Take me in.

Listen, speakers
I am waiting in the churchyard
where the boulder smashed the tree.
Move the garments carefully.
Tightly bound in tainted skin,
you’ll see an angel.
Take me in
and let me eat.

Listen, speakers.
What is this garden where I wait?
And is there, far beyond these walls,
a city shrouded all in light
where restless people dream about
the fall of angels?
Sing me healing sleep.

Listen, speakers.
The sun has drained its wine away,
and comes the moaning of the curlew
and the wind-song of the whooper,
earth-bound with a broken wing, like
a wounded angel.
Take me in
and let me eat
and sing me healing sleep.

7 Roofbeam (choir)

There is an angel
lying broken on a roofbeam –
an angel lying broken on a roofbeam
and all around the earth is flesh and blood.

There is a young girl
with a baby in her belly.
There is a young girl
with a baby in her belly
and all around the earth is flesh and blood.

There is a wing-covert
burning brightly in a pylon –
a wing-covert burning brightly in a pylon.

A face staring
from a furrow on a hillside –
a face staring, staring from a furrow on a hillside.

In the bottom of a bottle –
an angel’s claw
caught and broken in the bottom of a bottle.

There is a young girl
crying crouched among some sacking –
a young girl crying crouched among some sacking
and all around the earth is flesh and blood.

8 Prayer (choir)

Oh, father,
tell me the sky is empty,
tell me the sky is empty,
tell me the sky is empty,
up above the leafless elder.

Oh, mother,
where is my coloured clothing,
where is my coloured clothing,
where is my coloured clothing,
I dreamed it had blown away?

Oh, mother,
tell me the moon is walking,
tell me the moon is walking,
tell me the moon is walking,
to the edge of a kind new year.

Oh, father.
Oh, mother.

9 Ephemeral Song (soprano)

Speakers, listen.
Your gravity
has brought me towards this.
Shrouded in light,
I’ve found a hilly place

– a borderland
on the edge of living.
Fiercely alive,
I reach into its sleep.

While an old sun
lies dead on the skyline,
thickening night
breathes everything in,

and my shadow
straddles this borderland
and marks its cross
at the edge of living.

Speakers, listen.
Now we shall meet
where life and death conjoin
in disaster

and in my shadow
you will see
everything created
in a gleam of beauty.

Clothed in light,
here is the very place
– a borderland
on the edge of living.

Speakers, listen
I am amongst you now,
who conjured me
from the throbbing air.

Run your fingers
through the tears on my cheeks
and, in the forest,
stroke my broken wings.

With a stone,
mark the place
where my body is sacrificed.
See there is no blame.

Then all I ask
is that you sing for me
and that your song
should bring restoration.

10 Psalm of Shadows (choir)

The forest flowers have fallen with the sun
– three-hundred flowers have fallen in the shade.
An angel fell beside them on the earth.
The angel waits until the earth is warm.
The angel waits until the earth is warm.
The forest flowers have fallen with the sun.
There is no forest, only shadow trees,
and in the shadows nothing ever grows,
Without the flowers there is no forest here.
The forest flowers have fallen with the sun,
and in the shadows nothing ever grows.
There is no forest, only shadow trees.
And in the shadows many people move
– processionals of love.
There is no forest, only shadow trees,
and in the forest nothing ever grows.
And in the forest many people move
– processionals of love upon the hill.
From blue eternity the angel passed
through seas and cities, forests and the hills.
The angel sang an avalanche of air,
a harmony of crystal shot with blood.
And, through the darkness, searchers after death
are finding seeds of sunlight fall and grow.

11 Healing Wing (soprano/girl)

In a green tree, grow with me:
light is playing, light is playing.
In a green tree, grow with me
and see the leaves reflected in a stream.

What has been cut down
and kindled away?
The daughter of an angel;
a mermaid of the air.
Come under the healing wing and be restored.

Traffic stands still
where I mark something lost.
The daughter of an angel;
a mermaid of the air.
Come under the wing and be restored.

And in the silence, between
bells, there’s a voice.
The echo of an angel;
a siren of the air.

I remember everything
and I forgive it all.
The echo of an angel;
a siren of the air.
Listen to the song and be restored.

I know your territory.
I wait for your summons.
The echo of an angel;
a siren of the air.
Listen to the song and be restored.

In a green tree, grow with me:
light is playing, light is playing.
In a green tree, grow with me
and see the leaves reflected in a stream.

12 The Sun’s Wine (choir)

Grey city, enclosure,
who’s knocking there, knocking?
Grey churchyard, grey township,
has someone come early?
The curlew and whoopers
are calling their namesakes.

The high moors are shaking
with anticipation,
The sun pours its wine in the heart of the world.
Oh, sun, pour your wine in the heart of the world.

The whoopers, the curlews
are flexing their coverts.
The hillside of ashes
is cooling and quelling.
Enclosure, grey city,
there’s somebody knocking.
Grey township, grey churchyard,
stand back from the doorways.
The sun pours its wine in the heart of the world.
Oh, sun, pour your wine in the heart of the world.

The grey city stretches
its shadow north-westwards.
An old wing is broken,
a new wing is flexing,
a young mouth is singing
an old mouth is crooning,
a mother, and infant –
each quickens the other.
The sun pours its wine in the heart of the world.
Oh, sun, pour your wine in the heart of the world.

Grey city, enclosure
the voices are rising.
grey churchyard, grey township,
the geese are alighting.
Grey city, enclosure,
the sun is your heartbreak,
the sun is your heart’s-ease.
The sun pours its wine in the heart of the world
Oh, sun, pour your wine in the heart of the world.

Dark Angel, Dark Angel,
your shadow lies on us.
Bright Angel, Bright Angel,
you rise form the ruins.
We run from the churchyard,
we run though the water,
we scatter the ashes
and come to the valley.
The sun pours its wine in the hear to the world.
Oh, sun, our your wine in the heart of the world.