Patterson commission update
November 2004
Paul Patterson has joined forces with Dorset poet, Ben Kaye, to write 2005's JAM commission. The piece, The Fifth Continent - A Gift from the Sea is all about the Romney Marsh in Kent. The Romney Marsh is a large piece of reclaimed land stretching from Rye to Folkestone. It is a magical place, tremendously affected by the elements, with quite magnificent light.
The piece will be a four movement song-cycle of approximately twenty minutes duration.
Ben's original poems, written for Paul's piece are below.
THE FIFTH CONTINENT
~ A GIFT FROM THE SEA ~
1
Soft silence overwhelms the light,
As desolated grey slips smothering to rest,
To rise and fall amongst the shrouded stars,
To rise and fall amongst its emptiness.
Light leaches slow as dying blood,
And flows remorseless to the ebb.
All words are swept aside like weed,
Lost within the sea's caress.
Swallowed by a boundless sky,
Struggling from the grip of mist,
Here where nature's borders fail;
Horizons all are meaningless.
2
First faint rays stir souls and stock,
Incandescent breath ascends.
First false warmth burns loose the mist;
Steams the dew from woollen back.
Golden light so low and kind
Illuminates the world from underneath,
Burns transcendently, transforming,
All in its sweeping path to life.
Then sunlight blinds the ripples to the eyes
Old reeds are whispering a shadow and a sigh.
Silhouettes of purpose wheel and take to flight,
Disappear to dawnbreak, the vastness of the light.
Tarred clinker burbles waves aside,
As screaming seabirds squabble to survive.
Glistening like jewels, pebbles wet with spray,
Bestowed as gifts from the retreating tide.
3
"Insignificant" it murmurs
"Magnificent" we sing
"Insignificant" it cries
"Mercurial" we mouth
"Insignificant" it howls
"Merciful" we pray
We know we are its plaything
It knows we are its plaything
It has always known
We have always known.
4
This is not hell,
It is the end,
The tip of farthest windswept shore,
Out there is nothing for a thousand miles,
Where lodestones spin amongst the clouds' furore
How clear the churches thrust their towers from gloom,
How bright the angled sun illuminates the Marsh,
How hope is daily promised to this unique shore,
As carriage-houses cling suckled to their past.
Reclaimed with elemental arrogance;
The soil sucked screaming from the sea.
What thought possessed pipe-comfort minds,
Deluded us there would be no penalty?
We know we are its plaything
It knows we are its plaything
It has always known
We have always known
Bleakest in beauty, exposed in burnished autumn light,
Only those that stay will glean,
Only those that pause will see,
A foretaste of my paradise;
The warmest blanket,
The coldest night.
Familiar stars wheel
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