『Ashes and Snow』
Feather to fire, fire to blood, blood to bone, bone to marrow, marrow to ashes, ashes to snow........
If you come to me at this moment, your minutes will become hours, your hours will become days and your days will become a lifetime.
To the princess and the elephants. I disappeared exactly one year ago. On that day, I received a letter; it called me back to the place where my life with the elephants began. Please forgive me that the silence between us has been unbroken for one year. This letter breaks that silence. It marks the first of my 365 letters to you, one for each day of silence. I will never be more myself than in these letters. They are my maps of the bird-path. And they are all that I know to be true.
You will remember everything. All will be as before. In the beginning of time the skies were filled with flying elephants. Every night they lay down in the same place in the sky and dreamt with one eye open. When you gaze up at the stars at night, you are looking into the unblinking eyes of the elephants who sleep with one eye open, to best keep watch over us.
Ever since my house burnt down, I see the moon more clearly. I gazed upon all the Edens that have fallen in me, I saw Edens I have held in my hands, but let go. I saw promises I did not keep, pains I did not sooth, wounds I did not heal, tears I did not shed, I saw deaths I did not morn, prayers I did not answer, doors I did not open, doors I did not close, lovers I left behind, and dreams I did not live. I saw all that was offered to me, that I could not accept. I saw the letters I wished for that I never received. I saw all that could have been, but never will be.
An elephant with its trunk raised, is ladder to the stars. A breaching whale is a ladder from the bottom of the sea. These images are a ladder to my dream. These letters are my letters to you.
My heart is like an old house who’s windows have not been open for years. But now I hear the windows openings; I remember the cranes floating above the melting snows of the Himalayas, sleeping on tails of manatees. The song of the bearded seals, the bark of the zebra, the trill of the tree frogs, the clicks of the ..........., the ears of the caracals, the sway of the elephants, the breaching of the whales, and the silhouette of the eland, I remember the curl of the meerkats’ toes, floating on the Ganges, sailing the Nile, ascending the steps of .......... I remember wandering through the court of Hatshepsut ............ and the faces of many women, endless seas and thousands of miles of rivers ............. ………………………..(この辺全然聞きとれない） I remember everything, but I do not remember ever having left.
Remember your dreams, remember your dreams, remember your dreams, remember.
The longer I watch .......... elephants the more I listen, the more I open, they remind of who I am. May the guardian elephants hear my wish to collaborate with all the musicians of nature’s orchestra. I want to see through the eyes of the elephants. I want to join the dance that has no steps. I want to become the dance.
I can’t tell if you are getting closer of farther away. I long for the serenity I felt when I looked upon your face, perhaps if your face could be returned to me now, I would find it easier to recover the face I seemed to have lost. My own.
Feather to fire, fire to blood, blood to bone, bone to marrow, marrow to ashes, ashes to snow. (X6)
Winds do not sing because they have the answers. They sing because they have a song.
What matters is not what is written on the page. What matters, is what is written in the heart. So burn the letters, and lay their ashes on the snow at the river’s ledge. When spring comes and the snow melts, and the river rises, return to the banks of the river, and reread my letters with eyes closed. Let the words and the images wash over your body like waves reread the letters with your hand cupped over your ear. Listen to the songs of Eden, page after page after page, fly the bird path.
（動物譜寓話集）”』であるとの話を聞いちゃったもので、今回は「現代のベスティアリ」として、そういう目で鑑賞してきたわけです。ベスティアリというのは中世のイギリスの動物図鑑で、もちろん普通の学術的なもんではなく、その中にはユニコーンやドラゴンやペガサスといった美しい幻想動物はもちろん、実在の動物もなんかヘンだったりとか、動物血だらけ残酷物語的なものとか（笑）の空想動物図鑑です。わしは子供の頃、こういう幻想動物が大好きで、中学生のときに美術の授業内で作った銅板のレリーフはユニコーンだったり、この手の図鑑をいくつか持ってたりして（含：絶滅した動物図鑑や妖怪妖精妖獣図鑑）、本物ではなかったが子供の頃からベスティアリ的なものには接していたらしい。もちろんコルベール氏がいう「ベスティアリ」は中世英国のあの本に限ったものではなく、それぞれの土地での動物との人間の神話的な関わりのことだろう。わしがAshes and Snowに直感的に恋するように惹かれたのは、動物と人との美しい写真や映像の中の、そんな部分だったのかもしれない。神話学者の
が今生きていたら、Ashes and Snowをみて、なんというだろうか、なんてふと思ったりして。
」の中で抜粋の「アニマル・パワーの道」より
という超名盤共同作品があります。（Real Worldレーベルだし！） それから、神秘的な歌声で会場の雰囲気を盛り上げているアーティストはLisa Gerrardで、こりゃ映画グラディエーターのサウンドトラックの名曲“Now We Are Free”なんかを手掛けている人であった。 
