This piece is a lullaby for the winter season of northern Canada. The singer is singing to a frozen lake, and
makes promises about the spring break-up of ice, and the return of the water season. The inspiration for this
piece was the melting of ice on lakes around Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
Winter Lullaby Text by Carmen Braden
Sleep sweet, safe under your blanket of ice and snow.
The sky has gone to school and soon will return
having learnt a brighter blue.
So sleep ’til the spring sights make the scales fall off your sleepy eyes.
Soon the sun will set fire to candles of ice.*
They will burn through the night and into your hair.
They will transform your cold cage of grey and blue and black and white
into a flaming funeral, adrift on the stars’ mirror.
Sky has gone to school and soon will return
having learnt a brighter blue.
Wait ’til the warm water wakes your wintery wings.
Then one day, one quiet red morning when the stars have looked their fill
and dissapeared along with the dark,
then you will open your many eyes and see that you are once again free.
*candles of ice refers to a specific type of ice in the spring called candle ice that melts into long shards that
catch the returning sunlight.
