Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint
This poem originally appeared on Dagda Publishing's now-defunct website.
1. Fast
Was this the origin?
Was this the half-remembered mist
From which we fell, or drifted? Well,
It might as well have been.
Thin shafts of trembling sound,
Thin shafts of palely shimmering light,
Form mountain peaks, like EKGs
Rising from frozen ground.
The dancer waits to be seen.
The dancer, trickster, starts his tune:
All parts at once, a looping bounce
To turn the tundra green.
2. Slow
One of these days, on the green mountainside,
One of these days we will go to the woods in the rain,
Lie there and look as the raindrops make rings in the brook,
Part of the earth again, no need to hide.
3. Fast
It’s there to catch us fast.
It’s there wherever we can hear,
The dancer’s song, to urge along
Whomever he goes past.
Then join in, spring and turn.
Then join and follow through the trees.
Entwine, unweave, skip, march and leave
A single note to learn.