Bag - O - Tells

Karl Jenkins: Chums

Marta Keen : Homeward Bound

Luciano Berio: Opus Zoo

Peter Schickele : Seven Bagatelles /Jason McKinney: Seven Unfinished Stories

Amy Beach: Pastoral

Aaron Copeland: Three Old American Songs

Gyorgy Ligeti: Six Bagatelles

Homeward Bound Lyrics

In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed
When the sparrows stop their singing
And the sky is clear and red

When the summer’s ceased its gleaming
When the corn is past its prime
When adventure’s lost its meaning
I’ll be homeward bound in time

Bind me not to the pasture
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I’ll return to you somehow

If you find it's me you're missing
If you’re hoping I'll return
To your thoughts, I'’ll soon be listening
And in the road, I'll stop and turn

Then the wind will set me racing
As my journey nears its end
And the path I’ll be retracing
When I’m homeward bound again

Bind me not to the pasture
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I’ll return to you somehow

In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed
When the sparrows stop their singing
I’ll be homeward bound again

The Seven Unfinished Stories that accompany the Schickele Seven Bagatelles

Story I: Role Playing / Three-Legged March

Max had never set foot in this park. He had always passed by, pulled along in the rushing flow of traffic like a fallen leaf. Now the smell of dew- moistened air, the careless song of birds, and the soles of his shoes pressing into soft ground—the combination of all these sensations on a Monday morning felt giddying in a way that was hard to describe. And, for once, he did not have to describe anything to anyone. That was all behind him now. 

Equally giddy, Russ-his canine companion-believed each unexplored shrub required careful attention and just the right dosage of his own special essence. Gazing downward, Max noted with amusement Russ's neurotic need to visit each spiraea. Russ plunged deeply, snout-first, into the mass of stems and foliage, and then proceeded outward for a few quick whiffs of each blossom cluster. Then, with each shrub, he performed a jolly waltz- turned-march: sharp turn, quick lift of the hind leg, then a well-measured spritz. 

The blossom clusters were busy enough with buzzing throngs. Arguably, the bees were taking as much as they were giving—taking sweet nectar while delivering particles of botanical future unaware. Max pondered the newly discovered particles of his own future as he and Russ reached the end of the row of shrubs. 

“Today's the first day of the rest of my life,” he thought. “Will I be taking, or will I be giving?" 

In the distance, beyond the hedgerow of chartreuse and pink, a pond came into view. Three white swans floated aimlessly, gracefully, weightlessly on the giant pool of liquid silver. Staring ahead as the three feathered ships made their way across an upside-down sky, Max drifted in search of his own direction. Nothing much was for certain, but the journey expanded before him in concentric circles. 

Story II: The Barista / Serenade

He is here almost every day. I know because I'm here every day. He walks in like he owns the place, or maybe more like he doesn't mind who sees him. I swear the air changes the moment that door swings open and he steps inside.

He always orders the same thing: a small cappuccino. I've been too shy to say "The usual?" Shame. It'd be a much better conversation starter than "What can I get for you?" So robotic, so repetitive; the same script each time. 

I froth the milk. My fingers tremble mindlessly lost in their task while the whole of my brain seizes, trying to conjure the perfect opener. I feel two eyes on me and turn to see if it's true. Dammit! My finger touched the steam wand! Mustn't show pain in face. 

I pour carefully, balancing the foam against the rush of milk beneath it, negotiating a delicate, unfurling scrollwork onto the crema canvas. I'm about to hand him this beautiful study in white and brown-this perfect fern leaf–knowing he'll just slap a lid on it and walk away. 

The clock on the wall marks off the same seconds every hour. Seeing the same faces, hearing the same music-each day like picking up a spoonful of sugar and letting it drop back into the bowl, never reaching the cup. The repetition of these small, vapid events-like the steady, dreary drip from the steam wand-is so maddening. 

Torn suddenly from my caffeinated trance, I glance down to find my hand scrawling my phone number on the back of the order ticket. Instantly, my heart is in my throat. The seconds now pulse as though submerged in heavy syrup. The music is silenced. I can't do this! What'll I do when he doesn't call and I inevitably see him again? No. Not today. The sugar lands back in the bowl. The seconds resume their crisp march as the tired song regains its tempo. 

I place my work before him on the counter. He bends to sign the receipt as I discreetly crumple the incriminating ticket behind my back. Handing him the copy, I find him peering at the perfect white fern in his cup. I hastily divert my eyes, dutifully slipping his signature into the till. I look up to find he's smiling at me—his eyes meeting mine, a warmth spreading over me like caffeine rushing toward synapses. My face turns a bright shade. We each say "Thank you" in that habitual, awkward, retail way, but in a new, slightly warmer tone. He turns and heads out the door, leaving the lid behind for the first time. 

What a chicken you are! I look down at my sad burnt finger enclosing the crumpled ticket. I unfurl it to find his receipt... my scribbling nowhere to be seen. 

Story III: Plot Thickeners / Walking Song

Setting: Present day or ambiguous, non-specific past. Not entirely important. Location is scenic but not popular, perhaps completely fictitious. A general, academic setting-plenty of old buildings with dusty, unread but important things lying around. 

Principal Characters: An overly confident, attractive lead. A bookish nerdling as the unlikely sidekick and eventual love interest. A large cast of supporting characters and colorful townspeople. 

Plot: Will require multiple arcs and tangents for interest, adding necessary bulk for hardcover publication (and creating ample footage for television miniseries). Overly confident lead mistakes nerdy/shy overachiever as nemesis when both strive toward the same goal (a prize, a new mathematical formula, or something academic and abstract). After a series of competitive altercations, an unlikely partnership gradually develops into a romantic involvement. 

Research Considerations: Learn a second language for added interest and to provide obscure cultural references (something unusual but colorful: Icelandic?). Read more romance novels to develop an innovative and compelling, but less icky, lexicon for the requisite love scenes. Plot will be more exciting if the relationship were somehow forbidden or taboo. 

Story IV: The Cabin / Country Song

It started with yesterday's rushed, much-too-early breakfast and an unfinished cup of tea left carelessly by the sink in a mad dash for the door. All that rushing to sit and wait. 

And then to sit again for hours inside the long, silver body of the train. Lumbering and wailing, it took her through winding courses of concrete caverns, out past broad, green-and-gold fields of corn, and beyond into sheer wildness basking in midday sun. Finally, it hurled her into a sunset, setting everything aglow in shades of magenta, azure, and gold. Then, in a flash, everything went black as the steel horse plunged deep into an impenetrable forest with only a few flickering streetlights rushing past like stars at interstellar speed. 

The day and its events had been little more than a colorful blur—a journey so long, she scarcely remembered anything beyond the sound of the key turning the lock in the old oak door, and her mind following lazily behind her feet as she stepped inside the cabin. The rugged scratch of a match as it exploded into life. The breathy whisper as flame embraced the wick of the faithful kerosene lamp. The rush of familiarity that came toward her at the speed of firelight-its faint glow touching everything around her. There were too many memories to contend with at that hour. 

Now it was a new day-a distant planet, a different dimension. Mug in hand, wearing her nubbiest woolen socks, she stood in the tiny kitchen with one foot in the past and the other in the present; the future was a matter of much indifference. She nodded in agreement with a voice unheard: this was the very center of things, and—insofar as she could tell-all that really mattered. 

For the first part of an eternity, she stood at the window beholding an impossibly clear morning. The first rays of sunlight crept across the landscape, illuminating the worn path ambling past the ragged clothesline and wandering over the next hill. A cloud of steam drifted slowly and gently over the pond, disappearing effortlessly into infinity. 

Story V: Word Search / Game

Another sultry summer evening in Bogalusa. Once again, the blazing sun overstayed its welcome, hanging low on the edge of the western sky as if held aloft by the dark, piney woods at the edge of town. A sheet of heat lightning flashed in the east where purple night began to gather. 

Wilma and Bonnie sat on the front porch shelling two pillowcases of bush beans. Their hands moved as quick and precise as lace makers'. Fingers prodded the pearly prizes from each pod into the large pot sitting between them, and then casually tossed the empty pods into a weathered laundry basket. 

As theirs was the only side of Redwood Avenue with a sidewalk, a trickling parade of pedestrians shuffled up and down right in front of their house. Bonnie often entertained herself by imagining motives for each person's coming and going, but tonight her thoughts were distracted by the weight of unspoken words like the shadows of the gathering dusk. 

Wilma, pausing mid-pod, tapped a pack of cigarettes on her armrest, then positioned and lit her fifth cigarette of the evening while never missing a beat with her beans. Its flaming orange tip bounced in time with her every syllable like a conductor's baton in the sourest symphony ever written.

"Lord, here comes Jean," Wilma half-whispered. “She done got so big. Her butt's 'bout to bust outta them pants. Just look at that; she oughta be ashamed!" 

"Hi ladies,” said Jean, timidly waving as she walked past. Wilma nodded reflexively, barely looking up. 

"She had nerve to tell me I oughta quit smokin' at the fifth Sunday singin'. 'Miz Wilma,' she says, 'you gotta be lookin' out for your health at your age.' At my age? She oughta be lookin' out for her own health with the diabetus and high blood in that fam❜ly of hers. Ain't that the nerve?" Bonnie shook her head sideways: always the safest response to one of Wilma's rhetorical questions. “I'ma outlive 'em all, anyways. She's the preacher's wife, but them two don't live right and e'erbody knows it." 

A young woman leading a dachshund puppy on a pink, rhinestone-studded leash strolled by. Wilma smiled too broadly while waving daintily at the puppy. “Bless her lil' heart," she said between her teeth, never breaking her smile. "Her daddy's the one got caught over at the motel with the school secretary couple months ago. Wife threw 'im out faster'n he thought. Secretary's husband busted him up purty good, too. Saw him the other day comin' out the liquor store. He looked so bad. Just depressin', you know?"

There was a weighted pause as Wilma took another long drag. Like a whispered reminder from backstage, a cool breeze suddenly swept across the porch, erasing Wilma's smoke cumulus. From the vacant lot across the way, crickets in the tall weeds joined in the frogs' chorus of the coming rain. Bonnie ran a hand beneath her apron along the outside of her right pocket. The bus ticket was still there, but the words were not. She'd have to find them before morning. 

Story VI: Shades of Blue / City Song

"You want the last slice?" she asked, holding up the pie plate. There was no response, nary a grunt from the slumped form pressed into its permanent niche in the sofa. 

"Remember the day we went to pick blueberries, but almost didn't make it?" she asked. 

"Huh?" he asked, half listening. 

"We'd been planning for weeks, then-the day before-they said it was going to be rainy, but we wouldn't hear of it!" 

"A summer day when it rained? I'll need more to jog my memory than that," he replied blankly, not meeting her eyes. 

She stood silently looking at him, his face a stale blue stained from the glowing screen. Without warning, she plopped down beside him. The motion startled him, jarring the phone out of his hands, sending it with a thud to the floor. He glared at her with a look of pure indignance, though she now had his full attention. 

"You had the old rattle-trap back then,” she continued. “With those seats that always pinched me! Anyway, you said you knew where we should go. You wanted it to be a surprise! We got onto the freeway, and it looked hopeless. Storm clouds were everywhere! I felt the car lurching forward, going faster and faster.”

"Raindrops were landing on the windshield. I kept thinking to myself, ‘He may as well turn on the wipers,' but you never did! Maybe you thought it would encourage the rain? Anyway, we were doing at least 90. I thought for sure we'd be pulled over. I kept glancing behind us. When you took the Route 12 exit, I knew right where you were headed." 

"Thunder was rolling all around us, the air getting heavier every second, the sky ready to rip open at any moment. You pulled up to the edge of the bluff right in the spot where we could see the lake just down the ravine. We hopped out and ran like the wind into the field!" 

His mouth turned up at the corner as his face grew brighter. "I don't think I've ever picked berries so fast in all my life!" he said. 

Then, suddenly, they were there again on the day they outran the storm. Crouching in the bushes, sharing the handle of the same raggedy bucket, they plunged their hands into pure sapphire as the summer air-wet with raindrops, perfumed with nectar-danced around them. 

Story VII: Elusive / River

I wander down to the creek to find the spot where I stood when I first had that feeling, heard the voice. Take me back to where simply staring into the future brought joy. Take me back to that moment when having the idea made me feel complete. In that moment—all at once feeling it, seeing it clearly as these stones beneath the rippling current-I didn't need to rush after it; it was mine. 

It was simply a matter of planning, portioning out time carefully, and pledging unwavering allegiance to the goal. It began with high hopes, limitless potential. Now, as sunset nears on the final day, so much has changed. 

All of nature is in a constant state of change-a spinning ball of fire, soil, water, and air. We see only the changes on the surface, our roots scrambling for footing in this ever-shifting ground. We cannot know the unseen forces shaping us, carrying us along like water droplets in this creek rushing past. 

This spot is not special, only the welcoming lap of a willow kneeling beside a creek. I sit listening as the wind whispers, stroking the leaves, and at once I know the moment has gone. It's drifted away, slowly dissolved like these stones that were once mountains. No longer an experience, it's merely a memory of a moment. Try as I might to collect the right words, they can never evoke the sensation they describe so earnestly. 

Maybe, like a child at bedtime, all I want-all I need-is to know how the story ends. Like the well-worn pages of a book I've read countless times, I crave the comfort of knowing each and every moment of the plot inside and out. I long to mouth the words to myself as they're said again and again in familiar voices, to know and understand all the characters, to feel the warmth of a familiar universe surroundings.