Breath of Grass and Fireflies

This piece depicts an ethereal and liminal soundscape of an endless, gray grassland, a setting where my mind often wanders when it needs a moment of quiet. Performers improvise their musical material using the text below, along with provided pitch sets, working in tandem with the fixed media backdrop to create a world where the wind never quiets and the calls of unknown creatures drift through the mist.

Text:

Listen

There is no sound.

No sound but the wind in the grass.

It signs and shushes,

The only thing that breathes.

Listen

To the vast gray emptiness.

Distant sky cracks with silent lightning.

Wind-tossed fireflies reply,

Green sparks swept from a dark blaze.

Listen

Can you almost hear them?

The travel songs of dreamed creatures,

Fragmented, echoed,

Through brush unmarked by footsteps.

Listen

To memories of an endless expanse.