Scars 2023

Music by Peter Mowrey. www.petermowrey.com
Please click "Show More" for credits and poem texts.
Violin: Ioana Galu
Piano: Peter Mowrey
Composer: Peter Mowrey
Performance at The College of Wooster, October 22, 2023
The piece was inspired by five poems by Ioana Galu...
DEAF
God is laughing,
Oh, how much it’s hurting!
It rings my ears and breaks
a spasm in my chest,
diluted and shamed of a sin
like a cry, or an illness with no name.
How do I laugh,
what do I do to be louder
than all towers and bells?
I am gone with a world
that is spinning and drawing my way,
and can’t speak of the difference.
It is silence, and it’s deafening,
it is a scream and I can’t hear it.

IN THE MOMENT
I fly deep, a lost and fluid thought.
I am a whisper bending a sad smile,
pushing away a well-known answer.
Who could see me,
when all I’m left is shade and scars?
I am shaking, but it’s a game of light.
I am hurting, but I am nowhere to hurt.
A thousand stars are spreading out my spirit,
making it a calmer sea of empty spaces
and no arrivals.

SCARS
I’m emerging from a world of dreams
with scars and blood that can’t be seen.
My voice is gone, my eyes are dust,
and I alone can heal the past.
The road is empty, and I’m cold,
a spirit looking down the haunted world.
The snow is tasting me,
and I don’t feel.
The wind is biting me,
and I am still.

STEPS
There is a rhythm in the silence,
in nonexistence and in change.
There is a stillness in the bending,
in breaking, and in leaving.
There is no echo
from the steps of the departed.
There are no signs, no words
no touch and no goodbyes.
In the eternity of waiting,
there is no breaking of the silence,
just static, muted crying
leading back to nothingness.

WHEN I LEAVE
And where I’m gone,
it’s peace and calm,
and I can see you.
I can walk by you and feel and touch,
and there is never
a broken good-bye.
I am the morning light and the leaves,
and I’m not hurting.
And when I die it’s like I’m gone,
a running travel toward you.