DIPPER FALLS, Artemesia Place, Eagle Cap Wilderness

The economy of Art?

You know that your composition

has achieved a certain integrity

not just when there is nothing left to take away,

but when changing but a single part means

that you must go back and retune the whole.

NORWEGIAN SPRUCE—a long-line sonnet

A sonogram of the violin's vibrating body reveals to us nothing
Of the mystery, of the spirit, of its sound. Better to observe
By the light of a winter's moon the noble Spruce harvested
High in the Alps, older than a symphony by Mozart,

Yielding the light, resonant wood needed for the violin's top,
The soft feminine side with its graceful curves, balanced
By the harder, more powerful lines of the back of carved maple.
Yet, where now are we to find such trees? Science cannot

Help us, for it knows as little of the spirit of the violin's sound
As the seed growing in a mother's womb, So we listen. We
Experiment. We send rockets into the depths of space with

Recordings of Bach etched in gold. Is there anyone out there
Who might know? Might know this spirit of a sound that ripens
Slowly, deep roots in rock, that holds the stars, of 10,000 nights.

| download mp3 NORWEGIAN SPRUCE [5.8 Mb]
m With mid-winter coyote chorus, Eagle Cap Wilderness,
w/ no artifical echo added, but that of an old-growth pine/fir
forest on top of 2 meters of snow.

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