The Breath of Bear
In August of 2024 I was sitting in the audience for an open rehearsal of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto at Tanglewood Music Center. A woman seated next to me noticed me following along with the orchestral score, and we struck up a conversation about the music and the travels that brought us there. We hit it off fast and shared our thoughts throughout the rehearsal. I learned that she is an accomplished poet and literary instructor, and we were soon pen pals, exchanging our work, ideas, and experiences. Collaborating on a choir piece seemed to be a natural step for this composer-poet friendship.
In her poem“The Breath of Bear”, Patricia Lee Lewis describes a peaceful burial. The speaker views their return to the land with a sense of tranquility. Their voice will live on in the sounds and the silence of the natural world, and their example will lead others to understanding. They recognize that all beings and all things are made of the same dust. We are connected to the Earth from the beginning, no worldly accomplishments or investments required. I hope that by setting this text, I can help listeners feel this fundamental connection among all beings and between all beings and the Earth. We all belong in this shared space. Perhaps this is the same connection which facilitates a friendship between a composer and poet separated by hundreds of miles and nearly 70 years.
-Matthew Thomas Brown
Text:
What if you should find me
on a windy day, my body curled
around a red oak trunk, my head
at rest on granite, my hands
in prayer. What if you should wonder
who this stranger is, wide and knobby
between the shoulder blades.
If you should say, and are you dead?
You would feel my cheek and you
would know, and there would be no
sign of anguish in the throes.
Should you notice on my coal black robe
a crimson pocket, should you reach
your hand inside in hopes of finding
something to describe the kind of soul,
or song, or final question,
and should you find instead
an empty space in which your hand,
your arm, your shoulder reach into stars, do
not pull back, but pull within yourself
and listen. Perhaps you’ll hear the echo
of my voice, leopard frog, lady slipper, acorn,
hermit thrush, sandstone cliffs, the panting
of the bear, and you will rise
and walk to where the world
is waiting. You will say, I went
into the woods today.
I found a friend.
Patricia Lee Lewis © 2025. Used with permission.
Duration
6’30”
Year of Composition
2025
Instrumentation
SSAATTBB chorus