Winter Blooms 
LYRIC SUITE FOR PIANO / COMPOSED IN 2025

I composed the Winter Blooms lyric suite in honor of my mother, a winter-born botanist, on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. Her favorite types of flowers include several that bloom in the winter, such as Amaryllis and Wintergreen. I have adorned my modest musical bouquet—distantly related to the literary anthologia and florilegia of old—with personal poetic "pickings" that serve as evocative epigraphs for the movements. 

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SNOW SONG

In winter / all the singing is in / the tops of the trees / where the wind-bird / ... has turned itself / into snow.

—Mary Oliver, “White-Eyes”

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SOFTLY SHINING

But angel like, when I awoke,

   Thy silvery form, so soft and fair

Shining through darkness, sweetly spoke

   Of cloudy skies and mountains bare;

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And voiceless, soulless, messenger

   Thy presence waked a thrilling tone

That comforts me while thou art here

   And will sustain when thou art gone

—Emily Bronte, “To a Wreath of Snow”

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LIQUID MOON

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

...

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

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—William Carlos Williams, “Winter Trees”

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A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons –

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes –

—Emily Dickinson, “There’s a certain Slant of light” (320)

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TINTINABULATION 

Hear the sledges with the bells—

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

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—Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Bells”

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THE ONLY OTHER SOUND

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

...

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

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—Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

SHADOW DANCE

Our shadows danced, / Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.

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—Sara Teasdale, “A Winter Blue Jay”

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WINTER BLOOMS

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...the dark, too, blooms and sings...

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—Wendell Berry, “To Know the Dark”

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Image: Crocuses in Snow, Wisconsin Originals​

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