[E harmonic minor] [I. Overture, instrumental only, scalloped-fretboard Stratocaster establishing the central motif through rapid sweep-picked arpeggios, symphonic strings rising underneath, no vocals] [II. Recitativo — The Last Morning, sparse, lead vocal alone, freer rhythm, minimal accompaniment] Breath still rose against the heat my youngest sleeping at my feet my husband singing in the street the morning smelled of bread and wheat then the earth began to shake too small a sign for us to wake the mountain breathed a pillar high a pine of ash against the sky [Hard cut, full silence, no cadence, then the scene shifts to the riverbank] [III. Aria — What the Ash Remembers, full melodic vocal, 80s bombast, scalloped-fret guitar answering each vocal phrase in call and response] I held them once, all in one arm a mother's reach against the harm and somewhere still the ash remembers the shape of arms among the embers I still can hear my youngest speak the way she'd press her cheek to cheek to lose this twice would be the worse than any mountain's fire and curse [IV. Coro dei Dimenticati, the Chorus of the Forgotten, massed vocal, flat and unvarying, no vibrato, no melodic movement, deliberately opposite the lead's range rather than harmonizing with it] The water does not ask you why it only asks that you draw nigh we were you once, we held so tight until the holding stole our light [V. Recitativo — The Weight of Proof, lead vocal, tempo pressing forward, resistance beginning to give] I want the weight, I want the ache it is the proof I did not fake but even proof grows hard to hold and I am tired, and I am cold [Coro dei Dimenticati, same fixed text, unchanged] The water does not ask you why it only asks that you draw nigh we were you once, we held so tight until the holding stole our light [VI. Interludio, extended instrumental, scalloped-fret solo building in speed and density, orchestral strings swelling beneath, the emotional climax, the mountain erupting a second time] [VII. Finale — Drink Deep, full vocal power, warm rather than despairing, key lifts toward resolution] I let the water take my name the mountain's fire, the mountain's flame I will not carry this again into some unburdened when let this hold become a door not a grave I'm kneeling for I drink to hold some other spring and somewhere soon, I'll learn to sing [Coro dei Dimenticati, same fixed text, sounding simultaneously beneath her final lines, true operatic counterpoint rather than a duet, her line ascending while theirs stays flat and unchanged underneath] The water does not ask you why it only asks that you draw nigh we were you once, we held so tight until the holding stole our light [Final chord resolves from E harmonic minor to E major, Picardy third, guitar motif from the overture returning transformed, then silence]
