Ted Kooser Suite

(SATB choir, piano, string quartet, trumpet, speaker)

Program Notes

Ted Kooser served as United States Poet Laureate from 2004–2006, and—to me—his poems embody the very earth of the Midwest. When you finish reading one of Ted’s poems, you have dirt under your fingernails: the good, clean dirt of the garden or a freshly tilled furrow. Ted once described to me his process. He considers each of his poems to be a metaphor, and he gives them only those words that the metaphor can bear, and then he stops, just before the metaphor collapses beneath the weight of the words. I find continual inspiration in his economic word choice and vivid imagery, and I present five of his poems, set to music here. While this suite is not narrative in structure, I believe that it tells an abstract sort of story by exploring various facets of a person’s search for meaning. These are not the powerful emotions of opera, but instead the subtle, pervasive, real feelings of real people. I hope they speak to you, as well.

I. Closing the Windows [PDF}

First, the uncertain white fingers
of lightning, fumbling around
with the black hem of the county;
peering in under, then thunder,
then the flat slap of the first drop
on the roof, like a fingertip
tapping, “Right here, put the rain
here.” And my father
in his summer pajamas
moving in silhouette, closing
the windows, no words from him
who swept through the house
like a flashing shadow, but a chatter
of leaves blown over the shingles,
the clunk of sash weights
deep in the walls, then the storm
muffled by the spattered glass.
It was all so ordinary then
to see him at the foot of the bed,
closing a squeaky window,
but more than sixty years have passed
and now I understand that it was
not so ordinary after all.

"Closing the Windows" from Splitting an Order. Copyright © 2014 by Ted Kooser. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanoyonpress.org. All rights reserved worldwide

II. Pocket Poem [PDF]

If this comes creased and creased again and soiled
as if I’d opened it a thousand times
to see if what I’d written here was right,
it’s all because I looked too long for you
to put in your pocket. Midnight says
the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped
by nervous fingers. What I wanted this
to say was that I want to be so close
that when you find it, it is warm from me.

III. The Dead Tree (set as Meaning in Light) [PDF]

Now the seasons
fall through the hands
of the dead tree,
and its shade
has dried to nothing
on the grass.
Light that was once
its liquor has turned
to salt, but still
the blind white limbs
are groping. Why?
Go to the tree
in moonlight, and lie
alone beneath
its silver reaches.
All night long
they gather meaning
from the stars.

“The Dead Tree.” Used by permission of the Author..

IV. Selecting a Reader [PDF]

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

V. Mother (set as Lonely Forever) [PDF]

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,

for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

“Mother” from Delights and Shadows. Copyright © 2004 byTed Kooser. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Ind., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org. All rights reserved worldwide.

Ted Kooser Suite

(SATB choir, piano, string quartet, trumpet, speaker)

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