A Hush You Could See | Soprano & Clarinet | 12'
A Hush You Could See features poetry by Robin Myers, a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow. This song cycle is dedicated to soprano Alicia Waller and was premiered by Harriet Fraser, soprano and Amanda Walker, clarinet. A Hush You Could See was recorded on Trumbore’s album The Gleam (Vickette Records, 2023) featuring soprano Gillian Hollis and clarinetist Margaret Worsley.
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1. I woke so early (from A HUSH YOU COULD SEE)
I woke so early
that the blue light
hadn’t yet become a substance,
was still more
of a hush
you could see,
and I heard the cat
communicating with
the curtains, saw
the shadows of my objects
all around, things
gifted or acquired,
softened by years of seeing them,
felt again
the shock of joy in my chest
as a challenge
to be honored,
without ever having truly
learned how—
In the way of the sweet blues
that goes
I’m so glad,
I’m so glad,
I’m glad,
I’m glad,
I’m glad.
I don’t know what to do,
I don’t know what to do,
I don’t
know what
to do.
—Robin Myers
2. For awhile I tried writing it all down (from A HUSH YOU COULD SEE)
For awhile I tried writing it all down:
birds glimpsed on walks,
meals shared or not,
novels dog-eared,
animal organs skidded
into pavement,
names,
things that shifted across
my father’s face in the months
of his illness,
neighbors and what I heard them shout
to their children,
meteorological surprises,
what day it was,
what time.
It was infuriating.
It never stopped.
Everything’s just a fucking catalogue, I snapped
to my friend the biologist,
as if insulting his mother.
He looked up at me from the garden,
smiling, full of dirt.
Everything,
he said.
—Robin Myers
3. When I sleep in the language I forgot (from A HUSH YOU COULD SEE)
When I sleep in the language I forgot
and wake, it’s like kicking to the surface with the sun
slanting in through the water,
it’s like the memory of being under it,
it’s like the weight, it’s like finding the air again,
breathing, the body
already forgetting again
what it was like, being there.
—Robin Myers
