for soprano and piano (2024)

5’15

to Rebecca Lea, for The New Winter Songbook

Recording: Rebecca Lea (soprano), Caroline Jaya-Ratnam (piano), The New Winter Songbook, Convivium Records 2025

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Natural State
 
Overnight snow still lying in patches on the field, melting under the rain
Wind bending the winter tares, glowing dull russet
Delivery vans on the road, pushing the slush around

The verges are scattered with drive-thru litter: Red Bull cans, McDonalds wrappers, vape cartons,
crisp packets, water bottles
Black binliner snagged on the barbed wire on top of the fence
A Stella can caught in a hawthorn bush

Sky a thick grey, shrouding roofs and the tops of trees
I can only just make out West Cornforth, the quarry, the Amazon warehouse

A few cows in a field beyond the trainline, heading for the byre
A pheasant pecking in the scrub
A red car passes, following phone lines southwards

Industry of body against the cold
Rough land ploughed through the rubbish of the past
Dirt-bike tracks through abandoned coalfields
The unkempt scars, planted with saplings

somewhere near Ferryhill, November 2024           
James Weeks