Before embarking on this composition, I asked Holly Benson to explain some of the imagery in her poem. I was especially taken by the reference to the Himalayan Mountains and yodeling – certainly not a common poetic pairing! Much mention is made of nature: rivers, stars, mountains and wind. Could she tell me what it was about her mother that inspired this? Was the family closely connected to the outdoors? Was it something in her mom’s character that resonated with these descriptors?

Holly kindly answered with the following detailed information:

“My mom had a loud cackling laugh when she really went at it. I remember her sitting in the kitchen on the phone with one of her best friends and just hacking away her pitches up and down, loud and unpredictable, not retained at all, sometimes even startling. This reminded me of a yodeler. Also, my dad has studied in Switzerland so maybe it was a melting pot of family background. I’m not sure what to do with that line; it makes sense to me because even though a yodeler is in the Alps the pitch is being compared to my mom’s laugh. So I made a small change to those two lines adding in you and changing ‘her glory’ to ‘your glory’.

The Himalayas are a spiritual and awe-inspiring place, they make me think of tranquility and peace, mystery and strength. Music to me is like the Himalayas, the grandiose mountains where almost nothing else in the world can compare and therefore, they are like my mom since her life was dedicated to music and love. I also used the Himalayas because I was in that area of the world at the time, and my mind was wandering into those desolate mountain villages, maybe knowing that she would be with me. The reference to the Dead Sea appeared because, I had recently spent some time travelling in Laos with some Israelis and they were telling me about their country. This poem was written while I was in South Western China, on a clear moonlit tropical night in February, close to Chinese New Years. I was missing my mom, seeing as our ethnic background is Chinese on my mother’s side; we usually celebrated Chinese New Year in our home town, Campbell River, by going out to dinner with close friends.

My family is pretty rooted in the outdoors. We grew up on Vancouver Island, and spent our winters doing cross-country skiing. Our summers were filled with outdoor activities whether we were tanning on rocks by the Oyster River all day, swimming at Saratoga beach which is a few minutes from our house or kayaking in the Nuchatlitz area, near Nootka Island, The Broken Islands and the Queen Charlottes, hiking up Mount Washington, camping, touring in our small motor boat to Desolation Sound, watching black bears on the beach, digging up clams or seeing killer whales swimming under our boat while singing on the deck. These are some pieces of my childhood and as an adult, they have affected the way that I see the world and also the way that this poem was written.”