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All text ©Michael Polack 2013
The sound tracks were recorded at Swindon Choral Society’s
world première performance of the work in 2013.

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BELOW ARE FOUR SAMPLE NUMBERS FROM THE WORK.
There are 28 numbers in all.

No. 13: Paradise Terns

High Voices:
Paradise Terns near the end of migration are
Leaving the coast now in exquisite motion,
Out from the Capes of the Horn and Good Hope,
Away from the lands of the Atlantic Ocean,

Low Voices:
Where sailors once followed the maritime pathways
The currents, the breezes, the pull of their oars,
Vikings in longships, Phoenicians and Berbers
Tracking the coastlines, exploring new shores.

Chorus:
Hudson, Columbus, Magellan, da Gama,
Tea clippers racing round Capes east and west
Filling their vast sails and finding the pathways
Of currents and breezes that carried them best.

Baritone:
Modern ships brutally cut across the pathways,
Battleships, submarines, liners and tankers,
Filling the waters with oil and with noise,
Factory ships sucking all the life from the oceans,
While little boats race out from small seashore villages
Finding their livelihood stolen, destroyed.


Children’s Choir:
Ah,ah,ah,ah!

Baritone:
Shipping that’s harming the sea and its creatures,
The birds and the fish, the dolphins and whales,
With plastic and oil and the sonar confusion,
Snaring the albatross, poisoning plankton,
Changing the patterns of ancient sea systems
And filling the waters with pain and pollution.

Children’s Choir & High Voices:
Out from the Capes of the Horn and Good Hope,
And away from the lands of the Atlantic Ocean,
Paradise Terns near the end of migration
Are leaving the coast now in exquisite motion
Borne on the winds, as the terns sweep on southward,
Come whispers of voices from two thousand years,
Ghostly refrains from hauling the sails in,
Songs sung in harmony hiding their fears:

Male Chorus:
When I was a little lad and
So me mammy told me:
Away haul away, we’ll haul away, Joe.

Arctic Terns were flying the oceans hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps a million, before humans appeared on the planet or the seashores. In the early days of sailing, humans like the birds used the elements of wind and currents, the pathways of the seas. Modern ships cut across such pathways indiscriminately, soiling the seas as they go.

The Latin term for Artic Tern is sterna paradisaea, hence the title 'Paradise Terns', and paradise is a realm of perpetual light.

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No. 15: South Polar Seas


Soprano:
Sweeping out southward, the Antarctic Ocean,
A summer to roam,
Resting on icebergs, their feathers renewing
Or pausing on islands with black mountain cliffs,

Wings of a thousand birds beating,
Their return ancient patterns repeating,
Terns sweeping free across south polar seas.

Chorus & Children’s Choir:
Riding the storms of the summer
And flying in crystal bright sun,
Gliding the breezes, then hover like humming birds,
Dipping to fish in the cold southern seas.

Ancient patterns repeating
Regaining their strength through their feeding
Terns sweeping free across south polar seas.

Three months after leaving the Arctic, the terns arrive for the Antarctic summer, during which they will rest for three weeks or so while their feathers renew, on icebergs or rocky shores, and spend the rest of the southern summer flying and feeding across the Southern Ocean, experiencing, once more, a summer when the sun never sets.

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No. 20: Yemaya


Soprano:
I, Yemaya, goddess of the ocean:
Dance, my people, on the golden seashores,
Soothe my anger in the raging seas,
Protect your fishermen sailing my water,
By the stamping of your feet with your voices raised.

Chorus, Children’s Choir:
By the stamping of our feet with our voices raised.

Soprano:
In the rhythms of your singing and the frenzy of your dancing
In your words and your movements let my name be praised.

Chorus:
In the rhythms of our singing and the frenzy of our dancing
In our words and our movements let your name be praised.

Soprano:
In the joy of your voices echo my sea-winds,
Stamp your feet to the crashing of my waves,
Smoothly moving like my ocean creatures.
Perfect your harmony of sound and motion:

Soprano and Chorus:
Harmony between man and nature,
Harmony between the land and the ocean.

Soprano:
In the rhythms of your singing and the frenzy of your dancing,
In your words and your movements let my name be praised.

Chorus:
In the rhythms of our singing and the frenzy of our dancing,
In our words and our movements let your name be praised.

Soprano:
Imagine me floating on calm blue waters,
Billowing dresses like clouds in the sky.
Feel my force in the tides’ rise and ebbing:
Sea goddess, moon goddess.

Chorus:
Sea goddess, moon goddess, Yemaya, Yemaya!

Soprano: But beware the times my anger rises.
Chorus: We fear for our fishermen
Soprano: My anger rises.
Chorus: And our seashore villages.
Soprano: My anger rises.
Chorus: Ay-ah!

Yemaya is the Yoruba (W. African) goddess of the oceans, rivers and lakes, who is also revered today in parts of S.America and the Caribbean. Her name is a contraction of Yey Omo Eja, which means "Mother Whose Children are the Fish." Associated with the colours blue and white, she is slow to anger, but she can show her fury in the storms at sea.

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No. 27: The World Sings

Chorus:
Oh the world sings to the movement of birds:
To the albatross floating the airs of the ocean,
To the gannet’s plunging to the kestrel’s hovering;
And so the world sings to the movement of birds.

Baritone:
To the beating force of the osprey rising,
Fish in its grip to the nest returning,

Soprano:
To the flicker of petrel skimming the waters,
Spanning the ocean on its six-inch wings,

Chorus:
To the lazy flight of the red kite drifting,
To the circling menace of the vultures rising,
The blur of the humming bird nectar sipping,
The sweeping clouds of starlings roosting,
The whistle and piping of waders calling,
The creaking beat of the swans migrating,
The mystery of all birds navigating:
Oh! the world sings to the movement of birds.

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