Sometime in October 2019 an octopus climbed a tree in Forest Hills Park and refused to come down. He became something of a local fixture, tentacles tangled in a maple overlooking the playground.

He's gone, now.

'The Absent Octopus' is an improvisation. The rest of the program are songs I've played numerous times throughout the cephalopod's residency

'Ardum Valley' holds deciduous forest and mysterious air asleep below a crumbling keep, home to three goblins and a bugbear.

Koji Kondo's 'Song of Time' was written for 'Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time', and his 'Grassland Theme' for' Super Mario Bros. 3'. I think his songbook amounts to standards for my generation.

Bartók's name for 'Mikrokosmos 41' is 'Melody with Accompaniment', from 'Mikrokosmos Vol. 2'.

'Summer Sonatina' was originally written as a duet for organ and bass clarinet, on 'Speak, Fraser'. Likewise, 'Mummified Mammoth' is a Rebecca Smit tune we first played as a duet for piano/organ and clarinet on 'Music for Pigs'.

octopus kite is
still in his tree watching blue
swell through cracks in cloud
23/12/19

brave octopus clings
to his tree mourning the wind
broken boughs below
6/1/20

a bass clarinet
sings for just the octopus
under threat of rain
11/3/20

sing in the summer
dusk under huckleberries
and the octopus
13/7/20

the octopus has
left its tree last sighting at
an uncertain date
17/8/20