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ALAN HANKERS
THREE SONGS
For mezzo-soprano and piano
Text by Rainer Maria Rilke

Dedicated to Allison Deady and Jacob Degarie

 I. AUTUMN

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

II. FALLING STARS

Do you remember still the falling stars

that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles of
our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

III. EARLY SPRING

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness

has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth

from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.

Alan Hankers (ASCAP), 2014, All Rights Reserved.

 I. AUTUMN
Text by Rainer Maria Rilke Alan Hankers
(b.1992)
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