IN THE DARK UNBRIDLED WATERS

May 2023 by the Stillwater High School Philharmonic
Scott Jackson, conductor

Orchestra

Grade 3

I first read the poem Beasts by Richard Wilbur in my senior English class—Its language and imagery struck me and the sounds were immediately born. It explores many musical images, and personifies each animal and passing rainstorm with a concordant role in the environment. The struggles of our ecosystem, our interpersonal views, and our society contribute to a greater balance in the world around us; every violent intent is strangely harmonic.

I. …in their major freedom

Mysterious and dreamlike; a night of small strange terrors beneath the moon. Rain lifts and the river slows.

II. The werewolf’s painful change

Rushed and distraught; uncontrollable and unsound as a man fights a sudden metamorphosis.

III. Meantime, at high windows

Tranquil and contemplative—Humans gaze at the night sky, trying to quantify the universe they behold. Nature around them still thrives.