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Celebrating National Poetry Month

Celebrating National Poetry Month
Celebrating National Poetry Month

This Saturday we return to the Hackley Public Library for an in-person and live-streamed concert celebrating National Poetry Month. With guest vocalist Olivia Vargas, Folias Duo shares a concert of original compositions for flute, guitar, and voice inspired by the beauty of the earth and a love of poetry. The concert takes place in the performance space at the Hackley Public Library in Muskegon, Michigan on Saturday, April 23 from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm. The concert is free but space is limited.


PROGRAM

Air Drop Queen (2022) – Maret/Bergeron

Soon (2022) – Vargas/Bergeron

Self Deprecating Love Song (2020) – Vargas/Maret/Bergeron

Procession of the Foxes (2021) – Bergeron

Locust Storm (2021) – Maret 

Emerson (2016) – Bergeron
I. Lords of Life
II. Delicate Omens
III. Moody Child

Olivia Vargas voice
Carmen Maret flute alto flute African tambin
Andrew Bergeron guitar


LYRICS


Air Drop Queen 
words by Carmen Maret

He calls me the Air Drop Queen 
But I feel more like a falcon
I see the river running dry
I see through all this armed propaganda 

Good people lack confidence
And the evil populate the stimuli 
This Queen without a spoon 
is no match for a 
crocodile 

This is all there is
But this isn’t all there is
This is all there is
But this isn’t all there is 
This is all there is

I ask myself what’s poverty
The loneliness of the whole world
So many prisons in things called freedom
Some people want to burn it all 

Let’s get together 
With the help of the mice
I won’t need a mushroom smoothie
To turn bread into roses 

Do we understand this boat?
Setting sail on crypto cash rivers
Bluetooth religion 
Stealing stars and stealing stars 
Stealing stars we crack the story 
We’ve always been told 

This is all there is
But this isn’t all there is
This is all there is
But this isn’t all there is 
This is all there is

She’s the queen she looks for something 
She’s the queen she looks for something 

This is all there is
But this isn’t all there is
This is stealing stars and stealing stars 
Stealing stars 
All there is

All


Soon
words by Olivia Vargas

Everyday days grow shorter
As Light lingers only in reflections of the moon
The sunrise sleeps in and frost covers the soil
As the icy wind sings: soon 

The frozen Earth sits in anticipation
Still, barren, broken, and alone
And the planet readies herself in steady excitement
To repeat the oldest ritual she knows 

Everyday days grow longer
Idle roots begin to squirm, move, and stretch
Morning Mist breathes upon the ash and the oak
And whispers “awake” to the still Earth beneath it 

Light stepped in delicately
From the corners where she hid and slept
She gathered the Earth in her vast and balmy embrace
While the Earth sighed and wept 

But Light held on too long
Through the incalescence of June
And just like every year, she lowers her arms and steps away
And whispers to the Earth:
Soon 


Self Deprecating Love Song 
words by Olivia Vargas

I’m not good with directions
I go the way I remember the most
I’m not the most attentive
 But I will listen when you feel alone

I am late almost always
I spend most days in my mind
But I’ll be there on your birthday
Even if I am falling behind

I will not claim to be something more
Something more than what I have to give
I will not ask you to give me the world
Just please don’t grow tired of me
Just say that you want me

I place blame when I’m angry
But that is few and far in between
I’m not good at quick decisions
But I’m passionate about what matters to me

I will not claim to be something more
Something more than what I have to give
I will not ask you to give me the world
Just please don’t grow tired of me
Just say that you want me

I’m not perfect, though I’ve tried to be
This could be worth it
So please don’t grow tired of me
Just say that you love me

I will not claim to be something more
Something more than what I have to give
I will not ask you to give me the world
Just please don’t grow tired of me
Just say that you want me


Emerson
words by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lords of Life
The lords of life, the lords of life,—
I saw them pass,
In their own guise,
Like and unlike,
Portly and grim,
Use and Surprise,
Surface and Dream,
Succession swift, and spectral Wrong,
Temperament without a tongue,
And the inventor of the game
Omnipresent without name; —
Some to see, some to be guessed,
They marched from east to west:
Little man, least of all,
Among the legs of his guardians tall,
Walked about with puzzled look: —
Him by the hand dear nature took;
Dearest nature, strong and kind,
Whispered, “Darling, never mind!
Tomorrow they will wear another face,
The founder thou! these are thy race!”

Delicate Omens
Delicate omens traced in air,
To the lone bard true witness bare;
Birds with auguries on their wings
Chanted undeceiving things,
Him to beckon, him to warn;
Well might then the poet scorn
To learn of scribe or courier
Hints writ in vaster character;
And on his mind, at dawn of day,
Soft shadows of the evening lay.
For the prevision is allied
Unto the thing so signified;
Or say, the foresight that awaits
Is the same Genius that creates.

Moody Child
A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private ray:
They overleapt the horizon’s edge,
Searched with Apollo’s privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.

Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.