Patricia Burgess
Composer, Improviser, Storyteller
Operas, Collaborations, Saxophone, Info, Contact

Amelia’s Flight - Prelude

Prayer Flags
Libretto

Amelia’s Flight - Scene 5
A Quickening of the Perception

Suriname to Forteleza  (1,318 miles)

As Amelia cuts straight across dense virgin jungle she reflects on the impact of slavery and yet how she devours these exotic people and surroundings. Her perception awakens.

AMELIA

Rain clouds hang high above Caripito
Dodging squalls and flying low
We cut straight across dense virgin jungle
So thick solid treetops for miles
Broken by a silver streak,
The name of the river, Surinam,
Once applied to this whole country.
A vicious, wicked spot of slavery

That flourished along

The wild coast of South America


I devoured my exotic surroundings

The beauty of both the men and the women


Through its sights and sounds

Through my eyes and ears

Through every one of my five sense organs


A quickening of the perception

Is a step on the path to power


The adjacent jungle creeps down

To the very edge of town

Inhabited by Bush Africans

Descendants of escaped slaves

Glimpsed in the market place

Bartering soft-shell turtle eggs,

String beans eighteen inches long,

Horned cucumbers, breadfruit and sapodillas


Thrilled at being my own woman

I sped along at the head of the party


Sea grows and expands, unlocks the continents as Amelia follows the waterways.She has barely started the journey or had a chance to look at the world but must push through to the next landing. She must stay focused on a quick crossing of the equator and finds she is never able to be in the present moment.

AMELIA
Pushing through hurrying
To get to some other place
Pushing through hurrying
To get to some other place

Roll out of bed at a quarter of four,
Hoping to take-off at dawn

Pushing through
Pushing through
Get to some other place

Pushing through
Pushing through
Get to some other place

Construction work shortens
The take-off distance,
Making the fuel load a bit difficult

Pushing through
Pushing through
Get to some other place

Electra does not lift her wheels ‘til seven,
The sun well above the horizon

I have never seen a jungle
Geography requiring the best equipment

Do you prefer drowning to incineration?

Electra can glide gently down
Without the use of her engine
But she must have a smooth
open space for alighting.
Prelude - Prayer Flags

Instrumental based on the song Prayer Flags -
creating the feel of prayers whispered by the wind


Prayer flags, 
the wind whispers and sings them.
Old ragged, neglected players. 
Prayers for things long since gone.
Brand new prayers full of trepidation,
for things that may yet to be put right.

Those hands.
The wind plays 
indifferently upon them all.
The rest of the woman - forgotten.
It blows towards the huge horizon.
Absent, left out in the dark.

It is always the same tune,
A beautiful one full of half tones.
The wind now blows it near,
Now blows it away
And makes it almost in audible
Now brings it near again
giving a physical sense of the infinite.

Sacred phrases painted on wood block.
Whistling utters fill the air with good.
Fill the whole countryside 
with more than just a sound.

Shouted into the wind.
Entrusted to the wind.
Dissolved into the wind.
Emotional overtones, 
Subterranean voices, 
The universe collapsing 
among the craziest dissonance

But those hands of hers.
lived a life of their own 
in the center of that 
immense deserted plain.




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