Ancestor 1 – Nigel Morgan

Ancestor 1

You look straight at my belly.

You smile from your treasury of quirky

eyebrows and ears. Someone

will ask where he got those from,

and why some days he yearns for the sea

and others is drunk on the smell of turned soil

and yet another day can’t get enough

of the morning reek of cities,

the smoke and fresh bread,

markets, perfume and sweat.

And one day maybe a sharp

pectoral pain, or bloody urine,

or lungs declining the air

and singing a swan song

convince him you passed on

the seed of his particular dying.

In bars 14-15 of Ancestor 1 there is a lively example of how different lines of text are brought together simultaneously between the two choirs.