Text of Three Songs

Poems by Anne Spencer Lindbergh (1940-1993) - used by permission

Earlier this afternoon

I was standing in a field barefoot in April

and the sun was hot and the earth was cold

and the voices of April sang in my ear.

Why was I hauled in like a kite at the end of a string

to sit in this dark room stifled with velvet

for four men in black tails playing Mozart?

There must be some mistake.

Mozart is where I was, not here.

give me one part water and nine parts sky

color them lavender and gray of sea-washed stone

and give me stone granite shoulders reaching to the tide

throw in a gull or two

and when you're through come sit down by my side

for half an hour silently

and then leave me alone

And overnight September came

with an upward gust of joy

carrying leaves all the way

to the white day-moon

Come too!

Not often is the passage

open clear through