They Will Call Him Brave

Written for the harp/percussion duo Sticks and Strings and their commissioning project The God Complex. This commission asks for a response to a Greek God. I chose Odyseus' story, especially focusing on the role of his wife, Penelope. The poem Penelope by Dorothy Parker provided an approach and the harp part is a setting, without words of the text...

In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbor's knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave. 
- Dorothy Parker