We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

In Audience with the Moon

from The Listening Engine by Michael Bell

/

lyrics

The moon rose full, and as it cleared the spruce tops it was greeted by a sudden howling. George sat up in bed. Wolves had come down silently from the forest and had infiltrated the beach grass. It seemed to George that the sound went straight to the center of his being. It passed through the center and out the other side, traveling over the icy strait toward the moonlit mountain.

All his sensibilities quickened. Now and again, when the wolves stopped for a moment, George heard each grass blade rustling, each wave lapping. Waiting for the wolves to resume, he heard the blowing of humpback whales as they swung in close to shore.

The wolves were ending their song when, from the sea, the whales answered it. George swears that this is true. The whale music was, he says, like whistling, trumpeting, and singing combined. It resembled no work of man he knew, but it blended perfectly with the chorus of wolves. The forest's mournful ululations mingled with the brass winds and wood winds of the deep. The earth was singing to its moon, and the sea was harmonizing.

George sat silent in the middle of the music, yet he did not feel left out. It seemed to him that the two worlds, land and sea, were coming together in him. This morning he had padded. like the wolves, in bare feet on the mossy forest floor, and this afternoon he had paddled Icy Strait, like the humpback whales. A triumvirate, they praised the moon: lupus, George, leviathan.

credits

from The Listening Engine, released January 8, 2023
Text of "In Audience with the Moon" quoted from "The Starship and the Canoe" by Kenneth Brower. Used with permission.

www.mountaineers.org/books

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Michael Bell image

Michael Bell Bellingham, Washington

A Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too.

Some of this is music for video games. The rest is a fairly raw document of my ongoing attempt to find something new among the blinking lights in my studio at home.

contact / help

Contact Michael Bell

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

Michael Bell recommends:

If you like Michael Bell, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Seafood Sam joins the show to discuss his newest album, " Standing On Giant Shoulders".
listen now