It had been a disaster.
Prolendo had gone to the Inn to inquire about getting a gig there. It had taken a bit of courage to venture out away from the familiar, comfortable, unthreatening shell that was his studio. But until there were students, he needed a way to pay the bills, and as long as he was performing, he would be ok.
He had started out by offending the bartender and then ended up doing an impromptu audition in front of the thankfully few patrons who were there. His nervousness at having to perform spur of the moment in the common room of the inn caused him to flub the parts and end the song less than halfway through. He then managed a social flub or two while those who had listened politely made the appropriate noises in spite of his dismal performance.
He fled back to his studio and slammed the door behind him, falling back to lean against it. His head tipped back repeatedly to tap the door with a thump, thump, thump as he brought his humiliation under control.
Then he slowly paced forward to the center of the studio and took a deep breath, preparing himself to perform again, as the stunted audition had left him needing to truly bring the song forth. He buried his face in his hands and began to sing?
A chorus of voices, ethereal and soft, flowing from simple two part harmonies into dense tonal clusters and back with the slow fluidity of a wide, deep river. Each voice following its own course through a phrase but constantly intermingling with the others. Approaching, breaking apart, melding with a different voice. Ending a phrase with an exquisite chord, dissonant, but somehow so painfully beautiful that one cannot help but feel a desperate yearning for it to never end.
Night with the eyes of a horse that trembles in the night,
night with eyes of water in the field asleep
is in your eyes, a horse that trembles,
is in your eyes of a secret water.
Eyes of shadow-water,
eyes of well-water,
eyes of dream-water.
Silence and solitude,
two little animals moon-led,
drink in your eyes,
drink in those waters.
If you open your eyes,
night opens, doors of musk,
the secret kingdom of the water opens
flowing from the center of night.
And if you close your eyes,
a river fills you from within,
flows forward, darkens you:
night brings its wetness to beaches in your soul.
The lyrics and the music combine to take the listener to the dark at the center of themselves, and dwell in it, and cherish it. And as the last chord dies away, there comes a silence that should last an eternity.
((
Water Night
Lyrics - Octavio Paz (translated from Spanish)
Music - Eric Whitaker
))