Wild Angel

 

This is a variation on the child raised by wolves archetype, but concentrating on the moral experience of wilderness existence.

Composer’s Comment: The complicated counterpoint sections in the middle of each verse are supposed to suggest the dappled sunlight in a forest, in contrast with the clearing-like warmth of the rest of the piece.

 

Lyrics

Through the forest comes a crying across the crocussed floor
and the she-wolf who answers has heard this song before.
If her Romulus were looking now he’d envy this new child,
for with this babe, no destiny will take her from her wilds.

She learns from her mother to love and from the sparrow to sing
and from the rabbit to play when the spring calls
and from the river to laugh and from the zephyrs to dance
and from the shadows to dream when the night falls.

And now she is learning to walk
And now she is learning to fly.
Wild angel living naked as the moon behind the frost.
Wild angel may she never need to know that Eden’s lost.

She looks to the canopy when her cradle fades away
and wanders the brambles as summer holds its sway.
But her Odyssey of innocence won’t last beyond her birth,
for hunger is master of every child of Earth.

She learns from her mother to hunt and from the sparrow to scream
and from the rabbit to chase when the need comes
and from the river to rush and from the zephyrs to catch
and from the shadows to hide what she becomes.

And now she is learning to kill.
And now she is learning to cry.
Wild angel hunting naked as the moon behind the frost.
Wild angel may she never come to know that Eden’s lost.

So her stomach is satisfied but her heart can’t stand the screams.
Yet as suns pass her victims no longer haunt her dreams.
‘Till the winds bring a new scent familiar and strange
that heralds a hunter who’ll capture even angels.

She learns from her mother to yelp an from his arrow to bleed
and from the hunter to fear her reflection
and from the trees of his path from the winds of his kills
and from her capture the end of perfection.

And now she is learning to run.
And now she is learning to die.
Wild angel lying naked as the moon behind the frost.
Wild angel may she never understand that Eden’s lost.

And now she’s too tired to run
but still she remembers to fly away.