excerpt: for a Frontier

programme notes

I.

I am afraid to own a Body –
I am afraid to own a Soul –
Profound – precarious Property –
Possession, not optional –

Double Estate – entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir –
Duke in a moment of Deathlessness
And God, for a Frontier.

© Emily Dickinson: Gedichte, ausgewählt und übertragen von Gertrud Liepe; Philipp Reclam jun. Stuttgart 1970, S. 148 [poem 89]

II.

Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door,
Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,
Or Billows, like a Shore –

© Emily Dickinson: Biene und Klee, 51 Shorter Poems ausgewählt und übersetzt von Wolfgang Schlenker; Urs Engeler Editor 2001, S. 88 [poem 1647]

This composition was commissioned by the “Klangwerktage” Hamburg 2007.
Publisher: Edition Nova Vita, Berlin