Night Migrations

Music by Oliver Caplan, http://www.olivercaplan.com Poetry by Hannah Fries, http://www.hannahfries.com/ New Hampshire Master Chorale https://www.nhmasterchorale.org/ Juventas New Music Ensemble https://www.juventasmusic.org/ Dan Perkins, Conductor October 29, 2022 Granoff Music Center at Tufts University, Medford, MA Night Migrations Poetry by Hannah Fries We sleep, stumbling through doorless dreams, while over our rooftops sky shivers with wings— warblers, cuckoos, herons and sparrows— waves rising on night’s cool breath. We sleep as they follow the stars (hummingbird and wren) high over shadowed earth, trees clinging to rock, cities curled in grief. We close our windows, bury our faces— we sleep and they speak: buzz and whistle, secret names through air tying each to each. We sleep as they fly (imagine being lifted) by moon and magnet, over undulating sea toward a place (remember) that echoes in hallowed clearings, in hollowed bones, the song that pulls them home.