"This Floating World" is a collection of five musical illustrations of the following Haiku by Basho as translated by Robert Hass. I often use extra-musical material as a means of generating structure and color in my music. The idea of using these elegant images as a jumping-off point was very appealing to me.

First snow
falling
on the half finished bridge.

Harvest moon—
the tide rises
almost to my door.

Hailstones
glancing off the rocks
at Stony Pass.

Winter solitude –
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.

A wild sea –
and flowing out toward Sado Island,
the Milky Way.

For Linda Chatterton