Maria Alejandra Velásquez-Sossa – soprano
David Sossa Fernández – guitar

Notes: The words written upon a trip to Yoho National Park in 2012. There was a memorial service at the Park’s Whiskey Jack hostel for my Aunt Olga Forbes, who was caretaker there for many years. The area around he hostel is dominated by the sound of Takakkaw Falls, which is a central element in the poem.

Lyrics:

The ragged rumble fills the valley,
Spans the sky-wide sweep of tilted rock
Upthrust from ancient ocean floor.

The thatch of pointed spruce
Contends with hissing needle rain,
Blends with the deeper roar.

Hanging glaciers slump and melt,
Gather into folds to carve a notch and chute –
The ghost-white plume that jags and jerks
In sheets of endless long free fall

Down to where our passing kin 
Flared like a campfire spark,
While on and on, the ceaseless thrum
Descends unto the sea again.