Songs of Passage Book II (2015)

Songs of Passage, Book II, focuses on life’s most imponderable journeys, beginning with Walt Whitman’s great meditation on the passage from life into death, “The Last Invocation.” “The Old Face,” with a text adapted from Whitman, pictures an old woman sitting quietly in the sun, her face “clearer and more beautiful than the sky.”Robert Louis Stevenson’s allegorical poem, “Know You the River,” continues the theme of late-in-life passages, with its hope that love, even in the face of loss, may “Go on from grace to grace.” Philip Frohmayer’s “Walking,” describeswith courage and withis own physical passage through the streets of New Orleans, knowing his body bears a life-ending cancer. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “Crossing the Bar,” late in life, after recovery from a dangerous illness. Like Whitman in “The Last Invocation,” he yearns for a calm passage: “…may there be no moaning of the bar / When I put out to sea.”

1. “The Last Invocation” (Whitman)—A moving setting of Walt Whitman’s lyric reflections on love and loss.
2. “The Old Face” (Whitman)—A setting of Whitman’s text, gently adapted, in memoriam for Lois Bentivegna.
3. “Know You the River” (Stephenson)—A gentle setting of Stephenson’s endearing lyric celebrating love and the passages of life.
4. “Walking” (Frohnmayer)—An intimate setting of Philip Frohnmayer’s ruminations about living with cancer.
5. “Crossing the Bar” (Tennyson)—A sensitive setting of the poet’s reflection after recovery from a serious illness. Tennyson stipulated that this poem be printed last in every edition of his collected works.