“To Venus and Mars” by Rodney Rawlings – Sandra Flores-Strand, Mezzosoprano
Description by Rodney Rawlings: Performed by mezzosoprano Sandra Flores-Strand with pianist John Massaro in rehearsal for Voices of Vienna concert of April 13, 2018, in Fountain Hills, Arizona. A video of the concert is expected to become available soon. This song is in tribute, and counsel, to those adventurers who push out the boundaries of our one and irreplaceable existence.
Watch an earlier performance of “To Venus and Mars” by soprano Amanda Noelle Neal here.
“TO VENUS AND MARS”
While children down here in the fields
Catch fireflies in jars,
So grown men chase evening light …
… To Venus and Mars
Someday a brave man will go–
Someone who can bear to be launched
And leave us below.
But deep in the sky
He will lose sight of the earth
Ere catching that one final glimpse–
Stuff of memoirs–
Knowing he’s bound on a course
To Venus and Mars.
—-
Now he must seek higher realms instead.
It was time for those last looks to end.
Echoes remind him of what they said
When he first heard their call to ascend:
“Do you find most of this globe absurd,
“With its throngs, restless passions, and tears?
“This world is vain, as we’ve often heard.
“Do you long for a mission that’s one-way
“To Venus and Mars– to Venus and Mars–?”
—-
Near Venus and Mars
Yet might he grow ill at ease
To gaze on them–visions of Earth
Taint all that he sees?
This trav’ler may soon
Dream he will one day return–
To mingle on streets full of life,
To chase falling stars
And quite serenely look up to Venus and Mars.
(Spoken:) And quite serenely look up
(Sung:) to Venus and Mars.
© 2018 Rodney Rawlings
Rodney Rawlings is a Toronto writer and composer/songwriter. He arrived at the concept of hypercomplex numbers independently, using Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism to guide him. See his YouTube Channel.