The Road From Hiroshima: A Requiem

Shawn Crouch

Text from Missa pro defunctis and poems of Marc Kaminsky

Lauds

1.

Unable to sleep, during the days of terror that followed the bombingan old song repeated itself in my head till its words emptied me of words, leaving in their wake a lullaby-belief in nothing more than the daily round

2.

Rains will fall on the ruins of the castle as before and trees will respond each with its own kind of leaves applauding the sun

3.

And when I stopped this chanting and fell asleep nothing could contain my curses.

Introit

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Bones

In the vegetable garden by the river where hundreds of students burned I scooped up two handfuls of bone and ash let it run through my fingers into the urn carried it back to the family altar and called it my son

Every Year

A great river runs through Hiroshima

And every year

We bring lanterns

Inscribed with the names of the family dead and light them and set them afloatlanterns that carry the dead vows of the living who will never forget them and the way they diedand for miles and full breadth of the river is one mass of flames.

Rest eternal grant them Lord And may perpetual light shine on them.

Every Month

My house was close to the place where the bomb fell. My mother was turned to white bone before the family altar

Grandfather and I go to visit her on the sixth of every month

Mother is now living in the temple at Nakajima

Mother must be so pleased to see how big I’ve gotten

But all I see is the Memorial Panel quietly standing there no matter how I try I can’t remember what mother looks like.

Every Day

I still keep two pillows on your side of the bed but instead of puffing them up every morning my hands sink into them and put back the impression your head left when you slipped noiselessly into the day I was still asleep when the bomb fell and all that remained of your body was this hollow place

Lux Aeterna

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine

Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum Quia pius es.

He was the only one making his way toward the city

Requiem aeternam Dona eis, Domine, Et lux perpetua luceat eis blue-green fireballs drifted around him dim figures moved in the darkness he saw one without eyebrows then one bald and vomiting as she walked

Libera Me

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, then one with black skin in die illa tremenda, and one holding a clock quando coeli movendi sunt et terra, and one with the bone showing through at the shoulder and one who couldn’t be seen under a burning house dum verneris judicare and a naked one carrying a corpse saeculum per ignem then one who halted, who would not go on in the black rain,

Sandals and Slippers/Dies Irae

Not aware of what I was doing I jumped down to the track and braced myself against it.

somebody fell on top of me, screaming a stream of pebbles lashed my face

Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriare, Requiem aeternam then I saw a light brown haze obscure everything

May the eternal light shine on them, Lord, with thy saints everlasting, because you are so merciful Rest eternal grant them, Lord, and may perpetual light shine on them there wasn’t a soul on the platform but their shoes!

Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriare, a chalky ash fell through the air et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriare, Requiem aeternam hundreds of shoes, left and right separated on from the other,

That day, day of wrath, calamity and misery and may perpetual light shine on them.

That day, day of wrath, calamity and misery

Rest eternal

Deliver me, Lord, from the eternal death, on that dreadful day, when heavens and earth shall move, only the shoes and hats, shorn of their people! grant them, Lord Rest eternal and may perpetual light shine on them. when you come to judge the world through fire.

Dona eis, Domine Requiem aeternam confused with clogs, strewn among sandals and slippers et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Dies illa, dies irae, Requiem aeternam like headstones and footstones marking the path of disappearance

In Paradisum

In Paradisum deducant Angeli in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem chorus Angelorum te suscipiat aeternam habeas requiem.

That day, day of wrath, calamity and misery

Rest eternal

May the Angels lead you into paradise; at your coming may the martyrs receive you, and conduct you into the holy city of Jerusalem.

May the chorus of Angels receive you,

Eternally may you have rest.

That day, day of wrath, calamity and misery

Rest eternal

To Dream Again

David Vess

Text by William Shakespeare

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.

Beloved of the Sky

Tawnie Olson

Text by Emily Carr

I went down deep into myself and dug up. (June 24, 1937)

I woke with this idea. Try using positive and negative colours in juxtaposition. Complementary are negative to positive. Try working in complementaries; run some reds into your greens, some yellow into your purples. Red-green, blueorange, yellow-purple. (Feb. 7, 1934)

Oh, that lazy, stodgy, lumpy feeling when you want to work and you’re dead! Is it liver, I wonder, or is it old age, or just inertia, or something from which the life has gone forever, that just belongs to youth? (Jan. 11, 1931)

The subject means little. The arrangement, the design, colour, shape, depth, light, space, mood, movement, balance, not one or all of these fills the bill. There is something additional, a breath that draws your breath into its breathing, a heartbeat that pounds on yours, a recognition of the oneness of all things. (Jan. 17, 1936)

God, God, God! Oh, to realize so completely that you could utterly let go and passionately throw your soul upon the canvas. (Jan. 29, 1934)

I made a small sketch and then worked a larger paper sketch from it. The woods were in quiet mood, dreamy and sweet. No great contrasts of light and dark but full of quiet flowing light and fresh from the recent rain, and the growth full, steady and ascending. […] “This is thine hour, O soul, thy free flight into the wordless.” (Sept. 7, 1933)

Danzas del Silencio

Alvaro Bermudez

Text by Oscar Hernandez Monsalve

La Palabra “Mía”

Mía de todo el tiempo

Mía del olvido imposible

De las manos delgadas

Y de los pies besados

Cercana y dulce

Extraña y conocida

The Word, “Mine”

Mine, of all time

Mine, impossible to forget

Of thin hands and kissed feet

Near and sweet, strange and known.

Mía de todos los aromas

Y todos los colores

Cuando sonríes mia

Y cuando llegas o no llegas

Mia entre mis ojos y mis necesidades

Sola mia

Igual a una palabra que siempre nos habita

Mía de todo el tiempo

Desde la vez primera

Hasta la ultima sombra Iluminada

Mia sin remedio

Y sin remedio tuyo

El Nombre Viento

El nombre que es viento vive más que el hombre

El hombre que es polvo, el nombre el sonido

Sobrevive al amo

A su vieja carne

El nombre y su música

Cantan el sepelio

Del dueño y de su viaje

En el hueso más largo

Cantarán los nombres su vida y su ritmo

Y al fin la ceniza será derrotada

Por una canción

Musica

Te oigo

Pareces de alondras

Pareces aire musical

Tiempo que canta, pluma inventada

Desde un viento blanco

Para no ser volada ni violada

Solo pluma y viento

Nada mas que ala sueño y viento

Spem in alium

Thomas Tallis

Spem in alium nunquam habui præter in te, Deus Israël, qui irasceris et propitius eris, et omnia peccata hominum in tribulatione dimittis.

Domine Deus, Creator cæli et terræ, respice humilitatem nostram.

Mine, of every aroma and every color

When you smile, mine

When you arrive, or not

Mine, between my eyes and in my needs

Only mine, as is the word that always lives in us

Mine, of all time, since the first time

Until the final illuminated shadow. Mine without remedy, and without remedy, yours

The Name Wind

The name, which is wind, lives longer than the man

Man is dust, the name a sound

It survives its master and his old flesh

The name and its music

They sing the burial

Of the owner and his journey

And in the longest bone

The names will sing their life and rhythm

And in the end, ash will be defeated by a song

Music

I hear you

You seem to be from a lark

You seem to be a musical air

Time that sings, an invented feather

From a white wind

Not to be flown or violated

Only feather and wind

Nothing more than wing, dream, and wind

I have never had hope in another, save in thee, O God of Israel; who art angry and wilt again show mercy, and who forgivest all the sins of men when they are in affliction.

O Lord God, maker of heaven and earth, look upon our lowliness.