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Tous ceux qui se chauffaient
A un bon feu d’hiver
Trouvent la chose amère:
On les a destitués.
Ils se gonflaient l’âme et le corps
De chaleurs infinies,
N’étaient dehors
Que pour prouver leur chaude vie.
Ils ont les pieds gelés,
Ils ont les yeux gelés
Et rêvent de sanglots
Pour le feu désolé
Qui couve un tas d’oiseaux
Point encore emplumés.
***
All those who sought warmth
From a good fire in winter
Now find the thing bitter:
They have been shorn.
Body and soul suffused
By warmth untold,
They stood outside to prove
They knew no cold.
Now their feet are numb
And their eyes are numb.
In their dreams they weep
For the desolate embers
Where a clutch of birds sleep
Forlorn of feathers.
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Et que le feu me brûle!
Il est toujours si loin
Que le plus court chemin
Me montre ridicule
Aux rêveurs du chemin.
Dites la chose affreuse:
Toutes les mains sont froides
Et la nuit nous font mal
Car la terre on la creuse
Avec une hâte affreuse
La nuit, et avec tant de mal!
Oh ! toute cette vie,
Tout près de moi, le feu qui brûle…
Dites ? serais-je ridicule?
Oh ! vous tous, transis, hardis,
Je vous le dis : Notre vie brûle!
***
And it burns me, it burns…
Such far-off flames
That the shortest way
Makes me look absurd
In the travelers’ dreams.
Say the harrowing words:
All the hands are like ice
And stab us in the dark,
For they harrow the earth
With feverish haste
At night, and the ground so hard…
These endless days,
So close to the flame!
Do I appear absurd?
To the bold, the bone-chilled,
I say this: Our life is ablaze!
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Couchons-nous, mon vieux, il est tard.
C’est notre tâche d’être diurnes,
C’est notre tâche!
et l’infortune
Des autres d’ouvrir l’œil la nuit
Nous touche — mais ils ont dormi!
Personne ne doit plus passer
Sur la route et les églantiers
Mettent seuls dans le fossé
Leurs paumes claires ou bien rosées
Qu’aucune épine n’égratigne.
Couchons-nous, mon vieux, il est tard.
Assez jouer, assez boire.
Quittons l’arme et la ceinture
Et déplions les couvertures
Où dorment des bêtes noires.
***
To bed, my friend. It’s getting late.
We must be creatures of the day,
We must!
and though the evil fate
Of those who keep watch through the night
Weighs down our hearts, yet they have slept!
No one may come along the road
Tonight, and the dog roses
Reach out into the ditch alone
Their palms of white or coralline
Ungrazed by any thorn.
To bed, my friend. It’s getting late.
The time for games and drinks is past.
Off with the bayonet and belt,
Then to lay out the blanket
Where the black creatures wait.
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4. |
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Blindingly, agonizingly clean
The morning like a Japanese flag
It seems that the hour will come
The world diverges and deviates until
Yesterday my mind was like the sea
A butterfly, the beat of whose wings
I don’t know if all roads lead to truth
With clocklike precision
Language is truly the house of being
Language flows
Whoever has even once known true beauty
Life teaches one thing and another
Like a bald man who collects combs
Our destiny is in our hands
Everything spins, everything throbs
Bitter and scarce is the northern light
All those delicate and stubborn
The three-sided glass house: one side
The nights write themselves into mornings
All of a sudden I am speaking in an intertwined language
The best part of day is night’s
The Swordfish, The Kiss, and the Lizard
Beneath the full moon and stars the motorbike
The sparks from your firesmoky eyes
The reader casts his shadow over the poem
Yes, inhale, yes, everything is just like this
To live more clearly
In what language can I write
Life’s living expression surges
I walked along the seashore
I listen for hours and hours
The which is can be expressed
Golden black my feathery tail
Desert dogs run through my dreams
Blazing unmoving sun
One night he went swimming
Lift up then, sun, a seaside house
The falling stars rain every more steadily
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5. |
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Libere e lievi in dolci suoni,
dolci suoni per te le mie parole
hanno trovato canti d'amore.
Oggi il grido, arido, secco,
esce serrato da un ansito breve
di ricordo.
***
Free and light in sweet sounds,
sweet sounds for you are my words
they have found songs of love.
Today the cry, arid, dry,
escapes clutched by a short gasp
of memory.
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6. |
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Sia calmo il mio respiro
mentre il mare singhiozza
sulla riva l'onda breve.
Sento sul braccio il soffio carezzevole di maggio
e il tuo tocco lieve.
Immoto
resta il cuore nell'ora che lenta
si raggruma
lenta, lenta.
***
Be still my breath
as the sea chokes up
onto the shore the brief wave.
I feel on my arm the caressing puff of May
and your light touch.
Motionless
Rests the heart in the hour that it slowly
condenses
slowly, slowly.
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7. |
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Quando tutto all'intorno
si dissolve, indistinta cenere,
nitida appari e dal profondo
t'apri limpida ferita
di dolorosa gioia.
Vivida splendi, fiammeggi,
lenta, lenta ti racchiudi.
E non so il tuo nome.
***
When everything around
dissolves, indistinct ash,
you appear clear and from the deep
you open limpid wound
of painful joy.
Vivid you shine, you flame,
slowly, slowly you curl up.
And I don’t know your name.
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8. |
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L’éloquence continue ennuie. … La nature agit par progrès. Itus et reditus, elle passe et revient, puis va plus loin, puis deux fois moins, puis plus que jamais, etc. AAA Le flux de la mer se fait ainsi AAAAAAA, le soleil semble marcher ainsi.
***
Continual eloquence is tedious. … Nature acts progressively. To and fro, it comes and goes, then goes further, then half as far, then further and ever, etc. AAA The tides of the sea go AAAAAAA, the sun seems to do the same.
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9. |
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Il faut se tenir en silence autant qu’on peut et ne s’entretenir que de Dieu qu’on sait être la vérité, et ainsi on se le persuade à soi-même.
***
We must keep silence as far as we can and only talk to ourselves about God, whom we know to be true, and thus convince ourselves that s/he is.
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Les hommes sont si nécessairement fous que ce serait être fou par un autre tour de folie de n’être pas fou.
***
Men are so necessarily mad that it would be mad through another trick of madness to not be mad.
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11. |
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Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie.
***
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
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La puissance des mouches, elles gagnent des batailles, empêchent notre âme d’agir, mangent notre corps.
***
Flies are so mighty, that they win battles, paralyze our minds, eat up our bodies.
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L’an de grâce 1654. Lundi 23 novembre, jour de saint Clément pape et martyr. … Depuis environ dix heures et demi du soir jusques environ minuit et demi. … Certitude, certitude, sentiment, joie, paix.
***
The year of grace 1654. Monday, 23 November, feast of Saint Clement, Pope and Martyr. … From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight. … Certainty, certainty, feeling, joy, peace.
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14. |
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Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
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Turn from that road's beguiling ease; return
to your hunger's turret. Enter, climb the stair
chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time
regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent
and the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on stone
to show you how your longing waits alone.
What alchemy shines from under that shut door,
spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart?
Enter the turret of your love, and lie
close in the arms of the sea; let in new suns
that beat and echo in the mind like sounds
risen from sunken cities lost to fear;
let in the light that answers your desire
awakening at midnight with the fire,
until its magic burns the wavering sea
and flames caress the windows of your tower.
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Contained in this album - Variant 6’s first full-length record - is a rich history. We began recording this project in November 2019, intending to finish and release the completed album in 2020. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, our final sessions were delayed again and again, until we could finally reconvene in the summer of 2021. We’ve been bursting to share this record for over two years.
The music we offer here celebrates the virtuosic potential of voices singing together. It represents a collection of some of our favorite repertoire from our first half-decade as an ensemble. The music is harmonically rich, deeply expressive, adventurous, and poignant. We are grateful to the composers for their fearless imaginations and for their trust in us. Their music answers the question posed by Denise Levertov in The Sea’s Wash in the Hollow of the Heart: “What alchemy shines from under that shut door, spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart?”
This album would not have been possible without our extended Variant 6 family, which, during the slow genesis of this record, grew by (a very special) one. On the final night of our first recording session in 2019, our soprano, Jessica Beebe, announced to us that she was expecting her first child with her husband, Mark. On the night we wrapped in 2021, Jess shared with us that their son, Henry, had taken his first steps that morning. New Suns, a new son; a reason to sing.