'Memory Demands So Much' for soprano and piano (Lann, 2005) by Vanessa Lann

"Memory demands so much" for soprano and piano - by Vanessa Lann (2005). Text: Denise Levertov. Seven parts, all based on one poem. Live performance by Irene Maessen and Marcel Worms in the Uilenburger Synagogue, Amsterdam (2008).

Memory demands so much,
it wants every fiber
told and retold.
It gives and gives
but for a price, making you
risk drudgery, lapse
into document, treacheries
of glaring noon and a slow march.
Leaf never before
seen or envisioned, flying spider
of rose-red autumn, playing
a lone current of undecided wind,
lift me with you, take me
off this ground of memory that clings
to my feet like thick clay,
exacting gratitude for gifts and gifts.
Take me flying before
you vanish, leaf, before
I have time to remember you,
intent instead on being
in the midst of that flight,
of those unforeseeable words.

Denise Levertov
This Great Unknowing, 1999 (rights to use text received from publisher)