inexorable

Mattia Maurée, composer
Ashleigh Gordon, viola
Mike Truesdell, percussion
Yazier Henry, poet

Inexorable is often used as a negative, but the growth of plants through sidewalks is also "unyielding; unrelenting." The breath is inexorable, as long as nothing prevents it. 2020, in one word, was about "Breath:" the pandemic, fires, and the ongoing murders of Black people in America. Yazier Henry's beautiful poem speaks to all of that and more, contrasted with the slowly unfolding plant in the video. Growth and death might be opposites, or they might be the outer bounds of every ecosystem. Either way, for everyone to have an equal chance at breathing, we have a lot of work to do. Progress is not inevitable, but it can be inexorable.

If you would like, please notice your own breathing during the piece, especially at the beginning and end. Did anything change?

(In)Exorable by Yazier Henry

Earth spirit burns,

an internal fire.

The shadow lives on in the body,

just as it does in the memories of the blood.

Gasping for air, struggling,

desperate to find life’s fragile lines

under the relentless weight of loss.

Arteries and veins are forced into cross lines –

bleed through their walls and soak the veils between times.

The interior beating amplifies.

Echoes pulsate wild in the body unable to find breath –

and drown in the atmosphere. The darkened world,

words turn to sounds and dance only to the invisible.

Seconds and minutes spiral as palindrome into hundreds of years.

Life ends textured through desperate pleas for the mother.

The bell rings across the river between life and death,

calling as the boat leaves the dock,

always on time.

Imprints of predation call into focus the fragility

of flesh, bones, souls and skin. 

Imprints coming alive in tune 

with the angels of the waters and the forests

who without pause make elemental pathways

through which forceful winds can blow silence. 

Distempered portraits materialize into the ether

Language searches in vain for itself. 

Etches barely audible; low frequency scars on the land. 

Phantoms and phrases feud in the beyond 

as the survivor’s sound hard lament.

The body convulses internally without rhythm. 

As summer rains rush, flash floods beat loud 

under the earth’s burning skin. 

The harmony on the water’s surface

as ageless oars make the crossing. 

Breath—slow, heavy, the earth’s sighs live on. 

The giant tree with broken branches stands firm

in timeless witness, 

sees and recovers in the breath of the sun.

Even after we are gone.