There is a bleakness (2021)
for SSAA choir
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There is a bleakness
in Minnesota’s
mid-December sky:
icy breath blue,
rumpled goose-down grey,
inked indigo cloud—
palest of blush cheeks,
timid golds, at the
right angles of day.
Bleak. But beautiful.
Sky frozen over
dusted brown prairie.
Oil painting,
save for slipping light,
turning turbine, and
life thrumming beneath
insulating ice,
still breathing softly.
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--Claire Jussel
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program note:
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This piece is not only a reflection on bleakness in winter, but also in our lives, and especially a reflection on the past winter when things seemed bleaker than usual. But the poem is also about finding beauty in the bleakness, taking a step back, and noticing the colors that are always there – even if they are more subdued, more subtle, and take more energy to notice.
This beauty that is found in the bleakness might bring comfort or a sense of grounding in times of turmoil or chaos. Maybe it’s a tether, the sense of safety brought by heavy quilts and sweaters, the calm warmth found inside while pondering a tumultuous blizzard. Maybe it’s the intense, sharp clarity of a breath of fresh, cold air that cuts through the muddled confusion and renews the awareness of the feeling of being alive.
Perhaps the poem asks for a change in perspective – asking oneself to look more openly at life and the world, even when things seem most bleak and hopeless. It is asking for a change in perspective to take things as they are, let them exist, and remain in the moment rather than wishing for something different.
For me, responding to this poem illuminated another layer – seeing bleakness as a metaphor for depression. Acknowledging the presence of depression in the poem and in my own experience was a difficult part of my process for the piece, and that is partially why I would start working and then step away and not return for months at a time. It is difficult to give myself permission to appreciate the small moments of beauty or joy when everything else seems so overwhelmingly dark. But that is what this poem is to me – permission to take a moment to notice the colors within grey, the particular complexity and multi-dimensionality of darker emotions, and find those grounding- points of color.
I’ve always found comfort in nature when I’m struggling with my mental health. A brisk walk or even a quick breath of fresh air helps to center my mind; it gives me something outside myself to focus on. But winter brings an added difficulty – in addition to having less sunlight and feeling the effects of seasonal-affective-disorder, winter is often unforgiving, harsh, and cold – which makes this “nature-therapy” – reconnecting with nature as a process of self-care – more difficult to access. But perhaps that’s another layer to this poem: the realization that even in winter there is something in nature to heal and quiet the overworn mind, there is some source of comfort and peacefulness that one can find even in the darkest, bleakest moment.
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Contact Erika for score inquiries.
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