Commissioned by the McGregor-Verdejo Duo, the text for this song comes from Joy Kogawa's 1985 collection of poetry Woman in the Woods.

 

My first impression of this poem was that this text felt like an incantation or a haunting uttered by poem’s speaker, who is expressing unabashed love to an absent recipient. Most of its words are mono-syllabic, like “love,” "home," "food," and “and” and my interpretation of their meaning in the song is reflected through the use of repetition of pitches and rhythms. The vocal line begins with the word "love" in a descending major second and ends with the word "home" that uses the same two-note figure in ascending order, as if to say that the concept of love is closely related, and perhaps the inverse of the word “home.”

 

The pattern of sound in the phrase “Ant and Bee Poem” is reflected in the triplet rhythms of the guitar from measure 35 to 49.  By using three even pulses and a slightly shorter and syncopated triplet on the word “poem,” I was able to mirror the sound of the title of the poem in the actual accompaniment near the end of the song. The use of six-note figures in the flute at measure 28 symbolizes the hexagonal shape of the "honeycomb" that is described in the poem. Combined with the gentle brushing of the guitar strings, this section is highly textural, with lines like “round nubby words” and “chewy texture” this is music and poetry that aims at being tactile and fragrant. But perhaps the most important thing about this song, for me, is that it was a welcome new project after a long absence in composing, and it was written for musicians that I deeply admire as they are each consummate musicians of their respective instruments.

​​​

​​