And I was moved to ask myself just what I could still manage to accomplish in the time left to me.
Thus Arvo Pärt about his composition Lamentate, a piano concerto of sorts, inspired by Marsyas, the enormous sculpture by Anish Kapoor.
Pärt’s Lamentate is, as the name suggest, not merely a lament but a call to arms, in order create a counterweight to the state of the world. Marsyas does this in its own way, too, in the form of a musical instrument filling all of space.
The short canyon in Shades State park that leads from Devil’s Punch Bowl to Silver Cascades Falls is such an oversized instrument in its own right, to be played by walking it.
The beginning is total silence.
But, even during the worst drought, there is a trickle of water, feeding the fall with bits of sound and hope.
Four years ago I attempted a prayer.
Lamentate.
The Inner Frame 