Other Eyes
Gordon Bok
with The Quasimodal Chorus, Carol Rohl, and Women's Chorus
(p) © 2010 Timberhead Music
These
years I feel that many of us are retreating from the world --- (poor old
bunged-up world we’ve pounded on so long) --- retreating electronically,
mechanically, physically, drowning it out with our entertainment, insulating
ourselves from it with our machines and noise and the gloves on our hands and
minds.
But before I have to leave this lovely rolling ball, I will keep singing my
self from my horizon in to the center of it, as far as I can go. And I will
welcome anyone who wants to come along --- this is a job that can use a lot of
company.
After 70 years of staving around this kind land, I know our homeland is never
going to survive our sojourn here if we don’t learn to hear with other ears,
look through other eyes.
Bless all the other song-makers who know and sing that truth, and have shared
it with us.
Love on us all, now, under the wind.
~ Gordon
Recorded by Bruce Boege, Limin Music, Northport, Maine and Michael Reeves, Thomaston, Maine
Additional recording by Rick Crampton, Northport, Maine
Mastered by Bruce Boege
Mixed by Bruce Boege, Gordon Bok and Anne Dodson
Produced by Gordon Bok and Anne Dodson
Front cover painting by Kat Logan
Photographs by Janet Buck Marusow
Programming by Carol Rohl
Graphic design by Ken Gross
A special thanks to Kathy Pease
BOLD REYNOLDS
Words and music ©1991 Dave Toye
Gordon – 12-string guitar
Every life deserves a song. I learned this from Martyn Wyndham-Read, a wonderful British singer and carrier of great songs.
My name it is Bold Reynolds - I was born near Bonfire Hill
That was many years ago, but I remember still
My brothers and my sisters, as we played near the den
With ne'er a care in all the world - my life was easy, then
When I was scarcely nine months old I first met with the hounds
I heard their voices through the wood as I came above ground
I found it very easy to lose them in my wake
I wandered many miles that day - it was to prove my fate
Whilst I was on that journey, I met her in a copse
She had a handsome, thick red coat; straightway my heart was lost
We spent that year together - had seven cubs all told
I thank the hounds for sending me along that distant road
Many times when I was stalking rabbits on my own
I’d hear the distant hunting horn that called the stragglers home
At times the hounds would follow me but I would have my fun
Across the fields and meadows, I'd give them a good run
My mate and I we stayed together many seasons more
Pheasants in the wintertime we always had in store
And in the springtime I worked hard to feed the newborn young
Hunting through the short, chill nights until the rising sun
The years have passed, my vixen died, and I am on my own
My legs are tired, my coat is rough and all my seed is sown
I do not wish a lingering death – the hunt once more I’ll find
And lead them on through Marlpost wood for the final time
My name it is Bold Reynolds; I was born near Bonfire Hill
That was many years ago; but I remember still
My vixen and my young cubs, as we lay in the den
But now I bid you all farewell - my life is at an end
Words and music ©2000 (written in 1982) Gordon Bok, BMI
Gordon – 12-string “Bell” guitar
My friend Molly Schauffler once sang me the Norwegian song Moken (“Gulls”), and we realized our childhoods had one great gift in common. Fortunate we were, to grow up among adults who felt the privilege of living in this good land. I used some of the ideas from that song, but in the end I had to make up my own. I add a phrase from her song (“there where all the gulls are”) at the end.
Row my child, to the bird rock, where the gulls are sailing free
Dreams they do bring, and dreaming: dreams of the cold green sea
And who would be there but you love, to see what dreams there be?
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Row you now, be rowing; the day goes down before
And the ship of fairies sailing, to a dark and a distant shore
And how would you say what treasures would ever await them there?
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Sing my love, for the kingdom that ever we thought was gone
For the ship of ghosts is sailing, and that one will always return
Drowned are the lands and gone the sails, and the gull is their voice alone
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Row my dear, the day is fair where the young birds learn to sing
The world is a wheel of wonder that only the sun can spin
And the gull on the low and lifting swell is the world a-given wing
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Der hvor alle moker ar
Poem ©1935 L.A.G. Strong (1896-1958)
Music and choral arrangement ©1995 Gordon Bok
The Quasimodal Chorus
Many of us coastal folks have been entertained by (and have entertained) the local seal populations. They do respond to human voices and some human instruments. Here the Chorus has helped me pass on the feeling that L.A.G. Strong’s poem captured so well.
Leave her alone, she is the island’s daughter
Sleek heads, dark heads are risen from the water
Leave her the company her songs have brought her
The old grey music doctors of the ocean
Their holy happy eyes shining devotion
Blow and applaud in foam and soft commotion
It is her hour; the island’s only daughter
The dark sleek heads are risen from the water
Leave her the company her songs have brought her
CAPTIVE WATER
Women’s chorus: Beth Alma, Mary Bok, Fiona Hall, Meikle Hall, Mary Ann Hensel, Ellie Libby, Lois Lyman, Selkie O’Mira, Susan Shaw, Holly Torsey and Lynn Travis
I've had a 20-year conversation with Bob Zentz about taking other species out of their habitats – "stealing them to the sky." Perhaps our persistent preoccupation of alien abduction is a reflection of our own history.
Think about the dolphins in the Mediterranean lying like logs on the surface. Think about the mass strandings on so many coasts. Think about the degradation of their soundscape from ships and US Government sonar bombings. Think about the degradation of their habitat with oil and acid water and over-fishing. These are not stupid beings; we are not listening.
Blue and green the waters warm |
And so they take my child away |
and light and light and shining down |
and leave us silent in the sea |
So close beneath the sun and free |
and leave their strength and cruelty |
we roll the soft and lifting sea |
to stain the clear ways of the sea |
And where the flicking fishes slide |
|
we, leaping, singing, diving ride |
Now on the Northern reaches far |
the shifting warmth of light above |
behind the shoaling waters where |
the rippled world in play and love |
the lonely grey ones come to weep |
And now come whining, white and brown |
for gifts of life they cannot keep |
the noisy churning boats of man |
another voice comes back to me |
and man come rolling thrashing down |
her voice is keening through the sea |
with chase and pass of flailing hand |
And oh my child is singing there |
and roll and tow and swing and send |
in captive water and in air |
that all the world is play and friend |
Alive, she says; I am alive |
And now the net strike from above |
Oh warm and fed and still alive |
to catch my child and yank and heave |
And through the little channel seep |
her leaping life and living love |
that runs to sea her soul to keep |
and hold her though she twist and dive |
her voice is coming out to me |
and drag her screaming to the sky |
I am alive, I am alive |
and all she knows is asking why |
but mother I am lonely |
And I beside her only know |
I am alive, alive, alive |
her fright and pain and now I see |
but mother I am never free |
her lifted from the loving sea |
Mother, mother all you saw |
and feel the dreadful weight of air |
is true, these ones will never know |
come on her and it comes on me |
they have no ear to hear my cry |
And now the one with hissing breath |
and all I ever ask is why |
and mirrored face that mirrors death |
And we who have no sound for fear |
is here beside me in the sea |
can roam the living waters clear |
and when I turn to ask him why |
and we can kill and fight and run |
he has no tongue to answer me |
but why now do we choose to die |
Has he no mind behind his eye |
before we kill a human one |
and never tongue to answer me |
And still they steal us to the sky |
And so they take my child away |
and all we ask of them is why |
And so they take my child away |
and all we ever ask is why |
Poem © Rudyard Kipling (1865-1935)
Music © 1980 Bob Zentz
Gordon – 12-string guitar
Lukannon (Lucannon) was once one of the greatest seal rookeries in the world; it’s in the Aleutian Islands. Gooverooska is an old Russian word for kittiwake (a small seabird). Kipling wrote this early in the 20th century.
I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!)
Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell rolled
I heard them lift the chorus that drowned the breakers’ song –
The Beaches of Lukannon, two million voices strong.
The song of pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons,
The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the dunes—
The song of midnight dances that churned the swell to flame—
The Beaches of Lukannon – before the sealers came!
I met my mates in the morning (I’ll never meet them more!)
They came and went in legions that darkened all the shore.
And o’er the foam-flecked offing as far as voice could reach
We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up the beach.
The Beaches of Lukannon — the winter-wheat so tall,
The dripping crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog drenching all!
The platforms of our playground, all shining smooth and worn!
The beaches of Lukannon – the home where we were born!
I met my mates in the morning, a broken, scattered band,
Men shoot us in the water and club us on the land,
Men drive us to the Salt House like silly sheep and tame
And still we sing Lukannon – before the sealers came.
Wheel down, wheel down to Southward – Oh, Gooverooska go!
And tell the Deep Sea Viceroys the story of our woe.
Ere, empty as the sharks-egg the tempest flings ashore,
The Beaches of Lukannon shall know their sons no more!
Words and music ©1993 Valentine Doyle
Gordon – 12-string guitar
Valentine once had the opportunity to bring a small sailing vessel across the Atlantic with a friend. They ran into the usual obligatory storm, and also something I’ve never heard anyone else describe: a river of fish in the ocean. Both of these are told here as seen through the boat’s eyes.
The storm when it came shook me clear to my keel
I lost all direction and time
I had no horizon, ran battered and blind
And the whole of the world was the great wave behind
And the wave rushing on me to climb
And oh, the ocean is wide:
Come wind and come weather, there’s nowhere to hide
And the ocean is wide
I carried my friends as a boat does her own
The three of us under the gale
I held on with the strength of rope and of wood
And human and little, they fought as they could
With the tiller and shortened sail
Chorus + You pray for your own ones to weather the ride, but the ocean…
By crest and by hollow, by dark and by day
By buffet, by blow we were hurled
For three days we drove on under staysail alone
Till the storm left us still and alone in the dawn
And bright calm to the edge of the world
Chorus + Come calm or come storm, you’re alone in the tide
The little fish came down the bright, breathing sea
From world’s edge to world’s edge they ran
They divided behind me and joined at my bow
And I on a silver thread, rudder to prow
And all the world’s ocean its span
Chorus + The web of the world’s in the sea by your side
With the little ghost wind the blue follow-fish came
Big and lovely, they danced in the foam
Ah, we traveled companions all down the day
Then as the breeze quickened, they were off on their way
And I heeled in the good breeze for home
Chorus + And the web of the world’s in the sea by your side
Chorus + Rise well, swim easy, wherever you bide
For the ocean is wide
©1987 Gordon Bok, BMI
Gordon – Spanish guitar
“House-sitting” in the winter mornings on the old schooner Stephen Taber I would sit on the companion ladder (where the first heat from the old woodstove would reach me) and watch the gulls soaring against the mountain. They’re great fliers. I made this tune for my friend Peter Platenius, who first enchanted me with music from his native Peru and Bolivia on the guitar.
THE MAIDEN HIND
Words: traditional Danish
Music and arrangement ©2009 Gordon Bok
Gordon – vocal and Viol da Gamba
Carol – vocal
This song speaks from a time when we were much more closely connected to the other animals, who have been—and still are—our best teachers of the ways to live in this world.
The mother to her son did say
The little hind thou shalt not slay
You may slay the hart and shoot the doe
But the little hind thou must let go
Sir Peter rode in greenwood bound
And the little hind played before his hound
The little hind sported his feet before
And he thought on his mother’s words no more
He spanned his crossbow with hand and knee
And he shot the hind beside a tree
His gloves from off his hands he drew
To flay* the hind without ado *skin
Her neck he flayed and shining there
Was his sister’s golden hair
He has found in her bosom cold
His little sister’s rings of gold
In her side with sore affright
He has found her hands so white
His hunting-knife to the ground he threw
Now has my mother’s tale come true!
Cold on the river falleth the rime* * ice crystals
There’s luck for the lad who can take it in time
Far the crane flieth up in the sky
Lucky the lad who from trouble can fly!
Music ©1990 Dick Swain
Gordon – 12-string guitar
Dick Swain found this haunting poem by one of England’s great poets, and made this magical setting for it.
Home, home, wild birds home
Lark to the grass, wren to the hedge
Rooks to the treetops, swallows to the eaves
Eagle to its crag, raven to its stone
All birds home
Home, home, strayed ones home
Rabbit to burrow, fox to earth
Mouse to the wainscot, rat to the barn
Cattle to the byre, dog to the hearth
All beasts home
Home, home, wanderers home
Cormorant to rock, gulls from the storm
Boat to the harbor
Safe sail home
Children home, at evening home
Boys and girls, from the roads come home
Out of the rain, sons come home
From the gathering dusk, young ones home
Young ones home
Home, home, all souls home
Dead to the graveyard, living to the lamplight
Old to the fireside, girls from the twilight
Babe to the breast, and heart to its haven
Lost ones home
Words ©1946 Douglas Stewart (1913-1985)
Music © 1984 John Broomhall
Gordon – 12-string “Bell” guitar
I learned this song from the eerily calm singing of our friend Penny Davies from Stanthorpe, Australia, and adapted her husband Roger Ilot's arrangement to the “Bell”. A gurnet is an odd fish with the usual complement of fins, but two pectoral fin- like legs, with which it "walks" across the bottom.
My wings were blue in the ocean green
The prettiest things you ever have seen
The gurnet said to the catfish
Rose were my legs and rose my sides
And who would have thought as I roved the tide
Where the red crab watched me scuttle and glide
I would come to dance in a net?
The fisherman stands by the water and chuckles
Clams are his ears and limpets his knuckles
The gurnet said to the catfish
The beard of a mussel droops from his chin
The scales of a mackerel cling to his skin
And his eyes roll out and his eyes roll in
As he watches us dance in the net
His eyes are hard as berries of kelp
But sweet is his daughter who comes to help
The gurnet said to the catfish
They take the ropes in their lean brown hands
And haul us out on the shine of the sands
And the young girl laughs as the fisherman stands
And watches us dance in the net
Let her hang up her clothes on a gooseberry bush
Where the waves say crush and the foam says hush
The gurnet said to the catfish
The surf is red with struggle and slaughter
But somewhere on earth or in sky or in water
The scaly man and his long-legged daughter
Will come to dance in a net
The fishes run to the fisherman’s tune
The waters run to the pull of the moon
The gurnet said to the catfish
And there in the sand at the edge of the tide
The fisherman’s daughter, dancing in pride
With her rosy legs and her rosy side
Is less than a fish in the net
For somewhere, glaring in wastes of space
There’s a terrible eye in an empty face
The gurnet said to the catfish
And round and round in the spell of that stare
Flashing and slashing and biting the snare
Go all the glittering shoals of the air
Dancing like fish in the net
So somebody sits in space and chuckles
With hair like a comet and stars for knuckles
The gurnet said to the catfish
And glimmer of side and swirl of fin
His arms are huge as he hauls them in
And his teeth are sharks in a mile wide grin
As he watches them dance in the net
There I’m going and there go you
I with my wings of butterfly blue
The gurnet said to the catfish
The moon comes by and he swallows it whole
And now it’s the girl with wings on her soul
And then it’s the fisher, and the great eyes roll
As he watches them dance in the net
HERRING CROON – The Last Verse
©2009 Gordon Bok, BMI
Gordon – 12-string “Bell” guitar
You can hear the original song (which I wrote in1965) on “Herrings in the Bay” –
THD-CD14).
Some fishermen I know have said that the last time the herring fishery was sustainable was when we were weir-seining, the way we learned from the Native Americans. Some still fish that way in the Canadian Maritimes.
“Now those big corporation-boats are midwater-fishing, even in the spawning grounds: we never did that. When we were fishing herring, they stood half a chance.” – Frank Wiley, Maine fisherman.
“If a storm breaks off a stem of kelp, it’ll be growing back in seven days. Do you know what the bottom looks like after half a ton of otter trawl has gone over it? If it’s rock, it’s polished bare. If it’s sand or mud, it looks like the moon. That’s no habitat for any species.” – Gary Cook, New Brunswick fisherman.
Where have you gone, little herring?
What have you seen, tail and fin?
Cold and black, dead and dark, bottom torn away
Draggers staving everywhere, drug this garden dry
Pair trawl, mid-water trawl :
(God, they hungered after me)
Tore my home to hell and gone
There’s no more place for me
Words and music ©1999 Bob Zentz
Gordon – Spanish guitar
This is from Bob’s days in the Coast Guard. The vessel he was on had experimental speakers in the water – I suppose because you never know whom you’re going to be talking to out there.
Ocean Station Bravo - North Atlantic Ocean
Somewhere south of Greenland - somewhere far from home
Nothing on the radar - nothing on the sonar
Hove to and drifting on this ocean all alone
She was the CGC Sebago – Ocean Station Vessel
High Endurance Cutter, Number 42
Studying the weather - aids to navigation
Plotting ships and aircraft as they come sailing through
Just a speck upon the ocean – center of a circle
Nothing but horizon – wind and sea and sky
This whole world in motion – blowing from the Northeast
Not a hint of sunshine, just the grey clouds running by
Lookout calls the bridge-watch: "Objects in the water
Moving Surface Contact – off the starboard bow"
Plot 'em on the radar, fire up the sonar
Listen for the echoes – Ah, can you hear them now?
There's echoes in the headphones – whale-sound from the speakers
Filling all the spaces inside C.I.C*. (*Combat Information Center)
Songs of love and travel – songs of generations
Echoes of the ages in cetacean harmony
And me – I had to answer – I sang, I talked, I whistled
Even played the mouth harp through the microphone
They returned the favor with chirps and clicks and whistles
Songs of celebration not so different from our own
And when the watch was over – out onto the bridge wing
You can see those sounding singers as they breach and sport and play
Just a pod of humpbacks – farewell flukes a-waving
A memory worth saving as we traveled on our way
For we'd had a conversation with Leviathan that day
Ocean Station Bravo - North Atlantic Ocean
Somewhere south of Greenland - somewhere far from home
Nothing on the radar - nothing on the sonar
Hove to and drifting…
©1967 Gordon Bok, BMI
Women’s chorus; these are the women who came to speak Captive Water: poets, painters, farmers, teachers, therapists, mothers, folks you'll find in your community, too – fine uncommon people.
I got most of this song from a small otter who used to hang out in the same woods I did, around Sherman's Point, many years ago. Many folks have asked me about the name of the song: I was never sure of what that word was, (Bandy Tree, Bundy Tee?) nor do I think it matters. I've come to think of it as a place inside ourselves where, once we've been there, we know how to find it again.
I go down to the brandy tree and take my nose and my tail with me
Down the meadowmarsh deep and wide, tumble the tangle by my side
All for the westing wind to ride and slide in the summer rain
Sun come follow my happy way, wind come walk beside me
Moon on the mountain go with me, a wondrous way I know
I go down to the windy sea and the little gray seal will play with me
Slide on the rock and dive in the bay and sleep on the ledge at night
But the seal don't try to tell me how to fish in the windy blue
Seal's been fishing for a thousand years and he knows that I have too
When the frog goes down to the mud to sleep and the lamprey hides in the boulders deep
I take my nose and my tail and go a hundred thousand hills
Sun come follow my happy way, wind come walk beside me
Moon on the mountain go with me, a wondrous way I know
Some day down by the brandy tree I'll hear the shepherd call for me
Call me to leave my happy ways and the shining world I know
Sun on the hill come go with me, my days have all been free
The pipes come laughing down the wind and that's the way I go
That's the way for me
Words ©1993 Valentine Doyle
Music ©1994 Gordon Bok
Gordon – 12-string guitar
When Valentine sent me these words, I didn’t know she had also written a tune, so I worked this one out for it. Valentine says, “This is a song for all the creatures of the world, at the moment of their leaving it. My version is for a guardian spirit in New England, where all the creatures in it live or have lived, except the bighorn sheep, which I couldn’t resist. If your region has a bird or beast I’ve left out, or you need a verse for a prairie or desert, feel free to add one.”
Come my beloved ones, come and follow me home
Come when it’s time your days here are done
I am the Shepherd, I gather my own
Leave fear and hunger and follow.
Follow me down the wide world
Follow me home, my children.
Come, oh my forest ones, come and follow me home
Chipmunk and owl, raccoon and jay,
Come from the cool shadows hid from the day,
Leave your deep forest and follow.
Come, oh my meadow ones, come and follow me home
Woodchuck and mole, kestrel and quail,
Come from your burrows and grass-winding trails
Leave your bright meadow and follow.
Come, oh my river ones, come and follow me home
Muskrat and loon, otter and crane
Come from the high banks, the reeds in the rain
Leave your brown river and follow.
Come, oh my mountain ones, come and follow me home
Bighorn and bear, cougar and hawk,
Come from the timberline, windy grey rock,
Leave your wild mountain and follow.
Come, oh my ocean ones, come and follow me home
Petrel and seal, curlew and whale,
Come from the combers in calm and in gale,
Leave your grey ocean and follow.
Come oh my friends of man, come and follow me home
Lovebird and cat, plough-horse and hound
Come from the fireside, from farmstead and town
Leave your warm household and follow
Come when you know the call, come and follow me home
Come from the hill, the valley, the sea
Hunters and hunted ones, gather to me
Leave all you know and come follow
Words ©1981 Sherry MacMahon
Music ©2007 Gordon Bok
Kat Logan: vocal and keyboard
Gordon: vocal and Viol da Gamba
Sherry is an old friend from Colorado Springs who finds the loveliest ways to tell her friends how she feels about them. She sent this poem to me many years ago, and I made the tune so I could share it with more people. I've known Kat Logan for quite a few years, but never had much of a chance to sing with her until she and her husband Jim Loney moved nearby last year. Since then, they've become a welcomed part of the musical community here.
How shall I send my love to you in winter, with you so far away?
Beyond the frowning frozen lands, beyond the snarling sea
I will send it with the snowy owl, sailing silent through the midnight sky
And when you hear his hoarse and whispered cry, you will know he comes from me
How shall I send my love to you in springtime, with you so far away?
Beyond the long and lilting lands, beyond the sighing sea
I will send it with the mourning dove, soft and insistent in the distant trees
Hearing her you will know she brings my love to set your heart at ease
How shall I send my love to you in summer, with you so far away?
Beyond the dry and dusty lands, beyond the simmering sea
I will send it in the Bobwhite’s whistle, just as the first light of the morning comes
And when you hear her calling you will know that you are not alone
How shall I send my love to you in autumn, with you so far away?
Beyond the ripe and rambling lands, beyond the surging sea
I will send it warm in wild goose down, the way the hummingbird is said to ride
And when you hear that wild and windy laughter it will be me by your side
But how shall I send it in that final winter, and I so far away?
Beyond the sleeping starlit lands, beyond the silent sea
I will send it in the morning sunlight, in the swift storm that burnishes the sky
In the soft breeze that curls its arms around you at the closing of the day