• – BBC Report, 3 April 2004

• Lutheran in a wagon, a carriage, a sleek Italian ship,
• another wagon, a sedan chair.

• Anna, believe me, the tiny women here
• do not tempt me, except their voices
• the score you transcribe will contain parts
• only for alto and soprano – timbre so light,
• and every leading tone – half of half a step

• Lutheran in a geisha house, the tea and silk, steam and silk,
• ladle of water to purify his hands and mouth.

• I have come to love rice but not enough to stay.
• If I could, I would bring home the wine.

• Lutheran listening to the blind and the women sing Sokyoku.
• The man who plays the Koto must cross 13 bridges to arrive home.

• My chords, sweet Anna, absorbed in thin wood and silk,
• they never last. I need the Leipzig stone to bring the women
• home, to the tonic that suspends above them like a chandelier,
• not these lovely, paper voices, paper lamps.

David Wright