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Text: Poem by Maureen Tolman Flannery with added text by Robert Bowker
Early morning thunder
rumbles in the east like hunger.
Child of a troubled marriage,
he lies upstairs in the farmhouse bed plodding through wonder,
looking for the flattened penny
that derailed the train,
trying to reconnect the chain of raised voices,
ascertain some moment of choice,
like a bonfire leapt across on
midsummer’s midnight,
some dark bargain struck with destiny,
a roadhouse on his family’s track
that turned them---
with no hope of ever turning back--
toward the childhood of his memory
*the harshness he grew used to
bitter, barren, frightened and alone
and all alone with the draught dry truth
what’s left is now, what’s mine is now
*Last four lines added by composer
Performance Suggestions: Childhood Visions
Flattened Penny Aria Version. 2:53
Safety Net 3:51
Music in My Dreams 2:42
