Experimental Bill Boethius
Seeds

Another collaboration with the poet’s co-op.

poetscoop.org/archalphatitle.htm

Sounds often work like seeds, and so I found Kathryn Bass’s poem a natural subject for a sound setting.

Also, I found her spoken reading quite mellifluous and musical in it’s own right.

There's also a pagan thrust to her words: "you must have faith ... and luck".

The Song of the Seeds

A Song for Seeds

Now is the time
of sharp bird bones,
of the rustling ghosts
of last year’s leaves.

Now is a time silvered
slick—only a trick
of moonlight and frost.

Now, pink sky
and berries stain
the snowscape.

Know that blood rushes
beneath this cold. Each
seed follows
its trail of breadcrumbs

through hard
light to darkness
to something
unimagined: the self
cracked open. One day,

you will remember
this time as sleep.
One day, you will
live, not as tooth, but
as velvet, green
and growing.

One day, you will feel
quite ready to shrug
out of yourself. Believe,
then, in the warm
light you seek.

You must have
faith. You must have faith
and luck.

(Kathryn Bass, from Within/Without, 2005)

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Kathryn Bass, words and vocal,
Bill Boethius, guitars, bass, drums, production.