Abyss/Scorched Earth
for solo Oboe
Composed and performed by
Matthew Peaceman
Abyss/
Scorched Earth
Elijah's
Mantle
'Shtetl'
Click title to play each of the movements
Abyss-Scorched Earth
If you believe you died in gas and flames, scattered to the four winds,
never to be reconciled with soul and body,
you can perhaps begin to understand the source of your loneliness.
Isolated; distances unbridgeable and yet invisible.
You feel all pains in the human and animal spectrum as your own.
You´ve returned to the land of the oppressor and see with scornful yet wounded eyes,
the torture their deeds have brought upon them.
The cry. Weeping that never ends.
Whether smiling or serious, dancing or playing.
Weeping, that never ends.
Sensless morals, yet firmly seated.
Loved and protected from the infinite cold after the ovens have cooled.
You´ve seen so many with screams choked off in their throats.
You seem destined only to hear the echos of pain reborn
in the descendants of both the executioners and the executed.
You will be pulled into arms of unhappy need and unending inner weeping.
To smile; almost impossible.
To hold; almost impossible to let go.
And this you are condemned
to fully comprehend.
the sun is burned to a smoking cinder;
the planets drift,.... listlessly....
their separate ways.
can you sleep?
M.P. Copyright 1988
'Shtetl'
