John Adams

A Flowering Tree {Album Lyrics}

One morning …

Storyteller
One morning,
working in the heat and glare of the summer sun,
Kumudha, the younger daughter,
looked at her toiling mother,
and her heart cried out.

Kumudha
(singing to herself)
“O Mother, it was you
who taught us
the prayer before morning
and evening’s song of thanksgiving.
With richest blood
your womb
once nourished us.
Your sweet milk gave us life,
while on your knees, as children,
we bent back in laughter.
But unthinking time
has hardened your face,
cracks your voice
and makes it falter,
while your eyes cloud over
with the gaze of forgetfulness.

If only I could become a flowering tree,
rain down upon your thin grey hair
cool white blossoms,
with scent of lemon and jasmine!
To serve you,
I would shed my human form,
blossom forth, unfurl myself,
my body a trunk
of dark glistening bark,
my head a crown of smooth white petals,
my flesh the white meat of the coconut,
my face the white of a cumulus cloud,
joyously welcomed, long-awaited
messenger of the coming monsoon.

"Sister, quick! Go to the house.
Bathe yourself.
Make yourself clean and fresh.
Put on a white robe.
Go to the well. Bring back
two pitchers of the clearest water.
Do what I say!
Sweep the ground in front of our house,
and prepare for me a sacred place,
right here, right now.
I will sit in meditation.
You, Sister, pour the first pitcher of water
over my poised body.
You will see what I become:
a flowering tree.
Then, sister, gently, oh so gently,
pluck my flowers.
Treat them with the greatest of care, Sister.
Love and bless each one of them,
for we shall sell them at the market
to bring rest and happiness
to our suffering mother."

Scene 2: Flores Chorus (listen to full-length track)

Chorus
¡Lindas flores!
¡Pétalos aromáticos!
¡Olorosas guirnaldas!
¿Por qué no los compran?

[Lovely flowers!
Fragrant petals!
Sweet-smelling garlands!
Won’t you buy them?]

Scene 3: Audience with the King

Storyteller
She arrived in the palace.
She cowered at the sight
of the royal chamber.
She was ashamed.

Male Chorus (as King)
Do not be afraid, woman.
You have two daughters.
Bring us the younger one.

Storyteller
The old woman
was struck stiff with bewilderment.
She screamed at her daughters
She could not understand
how the king would
know about Kumudha.
She returned home,
and she was in a fury.

She took a broom handle
and savagely beat them,
her two precious daughters.

Scene 4: The Wedding

The Prince
Serving in endless bounty
white rice and meat
cooked to a turn,

to honored guests,

and when the bird omens were right,
at the perfect junction
of the Wagon Stars with the moon
shining in a wide soft-lit sky,

wedding site decorated, gods honored,
kettledrum and marriage drum
sounding loud the wedding beat,

the women who’d given her a bridal bath
—piercing eyes looking on, unwinking—
suddenly gone,

Bride and Groom

Storyteller
Bride and groom
lay next to each other
on their wedding bed
in silence.

Kumudha
My lord will not
speak to me.
His glance, so fired with love
when the music rang out
and the guests danced—
his glance now is cold
like wet ashes.
He looks away.

The Prince
Let her begin.
She knows what I want.
Now let her do it for me.

Kumudha
Is it for this
he married me?

My lord,
is it for this bliss
you married me?

Storyteller
They lay apart,
neither touching the other.
The Prince fell asleep.

Kumudha
The still drone of the time
past midnight.
All words put out,
men are sunk into the sweetness
of sleep. Even the far-flung world
has put aside its rages
for sleep.
Only I
am awake.

Storyteller
Two nights passed.
On the third night
she asked him aloud:

Kumudha
My lord,
is it for this bliss
that you married me?
Tell me what you want!

The Prince
The tree.
The flowering tree.
You must do it for me.

Kumudha
My lord, I am not a demon,
I am not a goddess.
I’m an ordinary girl,
like any other one.
like anyone else.

The Prince
Enough lying.
I saw you with my own eyes!
I saw you become a tree.
From now on that gift
you so freely shared
belongs to me
and me alone.
Won’t you do it for me right now?
Turn yourself into a tree.

Kumudha
Green creepers planted inside the house
twine themselves with the cane outside
in his country of rivers.

Embarrassed
by his careless, cruel ways, we say,
"He’s a good man,"
but my round soft arms
say, "Not so, he’s not,"
and grow thin.

The Prince
We can sleep on the flowers
and cover ourselves with fragrance.
That would be lovely.

Act II, Scene 1

Storyteller
The King’s elder daughter,
jealous of Kumudha’s beauty,
spied on her day and night.
One night she hid herself
in the couple’s royal chamber,
and there,
shocked in amazement,
rigid with envy,
she watched
as the flowering tree
took shape.

The next day,
while the Prince was off hunting,
the jealous sister
invited all her friends
to go out to the royal orchard
that stood behind the palace.
She said to all she invited,
“We’ll bring Kumudha.
She’ll do her trick,
turn into a flowering tree.
You’ll see.

Chorus

Muchacha, muchacha,
ven con nosotros,
ven al huerto

Múestrate, múestrate,
explicanos tu magia.
luce tus flores,
la raíz y las ramas

¡Adorna¡ ¡Adorna!
nuestras negras trenzas
de flores y ramas
como una fina guirnalda.

[Sister, Sister,
Come out to the orchard.
Show us this magical gift.

Show your flowers,
Your long supple branches,

Our ink-black tresses
Cry out to be dressed in
A garland so perfect as that.]

“Kumudha once more …”

Storyteller
Kumudha once more
assumed the form
of a flowering tree.
But the sister’s foolish friends
ignored her instructions.
They carelessly spilled
the pitcher of water.
They broke the tree’s branches,
tore off its flowers,
and they ran off,
leaving
Kumudha alone.
It began to rain,
and Kumudha struggled to regain
her human form again.
But she couldn’t.
She could not gain her human form again.

Now she beheld herself,
neither tree nor princess,
neither tree nor loving wife,
a stump of flesh, a shapeless thing,
a twisted, mutilated body
with neither hands nor feet.

She crawled like a worm
to a rain-soaked gutter
and passed the night there,
a wounded carcass.

Kumudha
It’s dark above the clutching hand.
It’s dark over the seeing eye.
It’s dark over the remembering heart.
It’s dark here
with the Lord of Caves
out there.

Chorus
¿Por qué te escondes, niña?
¿Por qué tienes miedo?
¿Por qué te averguënzas de
dejar ver tu cuerpo?

[Why are you hiding, child?
Why are you afraid?
Whey are you ashamed
to let us see your body?]

Scene 3: Before I laughed with him nightly

Kumudha
Before I laughed with him
nightly,

the slow waves beating
on his wide shores
the lone palmyra
bringing forth heron-like flowers
near the waters,

my eyes were like the lotus
my arms had the grace of the bamboo
my forehead was mistaken for the moon.

But now...

The Prince
(wandering through the desert)
Four parts of the day
I grieve for you.
Four parts of the night
I’m mad for you.

I grieve for you
lie lost and sick for you.

Since your love
was planted,
I’ve forgotten hunger,
thirst, and sleep.

Storyteller
Meanwhile
the Prince’s younger sister,
she who had taunted Kumudha
and coaxed her to the orchard--
this younger sister
married the king of a distant town,
and she became its queen.

By chance,
a wandering group of minstrels
brought that stump of a body,
Kumudha,
to the town of the Queen.

We had all but forgotten you, Prince

Storyteller
We had all but forgotten you, Prince.
Now you come to the town
of your sister, the Queen.
Sick and covered with lice,
eyes blank and lifeless,
you care not where you wander.

At the sight of your
pale gaunt body
she breaks down into sobbing.

"My brother," she cries.
But you stand there, lifeless,
you recognize no one,
a face without movement,
mute as a stone.
Nothing will break the shell of your grief.

Knowing the Queen’s desperation,
several of her maids
went looking for help.
In the marketplace they saw this hideous "thing,"
this armless and legless bundle,
wrapped in rags,
singing for alms.
Hearing her song,
but never suspecting
who she was,
they took her and bathed her,
wound her in silk,
rubbed her with henna
and oil of sandalwood,
and they brought her to the bedroom
of the mute and lifeless Prince.

In the quiet of evening,
drawing close to him,
Kumudha, slowly and with great tenderness,
pressed against his cold flesh,
massaging his chest
with the stump of her arm.