“Long Time Ago”
Aaron Copland
Text: Traditional
On the lake where droop’d the willow
Long time ago,
Where the rock threw back the billow
Brighter than snow.
Dwelt a maid beloved and cherish’d
By high and low,
But with autumn leaf she perished
Long time ago.
Rock and tree and flowing water
Long time ago,
Bird and bee and blossom taught her
Love’s spell to know.
While to my fond words she listen’d
Murmuring low,
Tenderly her blue eyes glisten’d
Long time ago.
“Take Care of this House”
Leonard Bernstein
Text by Alan Jay Lerner
Take care of this house
Keep it from harm
If bandits break in,
Sound the alarm
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land
Be careful at night
Check all the doors
If someone makes off with a dream
That dream will be yours
Take care of this house
Be always on call
For this house is the hope of us all
“O Land of Mine, America”
George Gershwin
Lyrics by Michael Rourke
Verse 1:
From the farm, from the shop, from the home, they came when they heard you call.
And they builded a bridge ’cross the foam, with hand and with heart giving all.
’Twas the call they had waited to hear, the cry of a world in pain,
And a life was a price none too dear, that freedom might ever reign.
Refrain:
O Land of Mine, America, with Liberty alight,
Around the world, your flag unfurled, proclaims the dawn of Right.
The stars that fell from out the skies upon your banner bright
Have blazed the way for love to stray, where thundered Freedom’s fight.
Verse 2:
Mothers all, North and South, East and West, forever your name shall bless,
And the babe to her bosom is pressed, in safety and happiness.
Eyes that once had been burning with tears, shall see in your flag above
Starry symbols to last through the years, of Liberty, Life, and Love.
TWO FIVE O, Reflections (world premiere)
John Clayton
Poetry by Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon
Metamorphosis
For Joseph V. Labolito
Sometimes,
at the beginning,
we don’t know WHAT we are becoming
Until we look back
having become
become
having
having become….
I. Viewfinder: Posing
Start!
Take up the camera
Focus
Capture what you see—
Like fragments
Of melody,
People & places
Immortalized
As they be—
memorialized for eternity
the power in a picture.
Catch each glimpse
Targeting the gaze
The rhyme, the reason
The so many ways
Meaning comes.
Make visible—
Optimum
Optical,
Images & memory
Through all our days,
A thousand words a frame.
Look up
Look out
Remember what you see
Each sight a gift—
Recognition
Ability.
Under
Photographic hood
When setting up the shot,
in the dark room
with reflection
separating into parts,
afterwards,
fuel for recounted
thinking—
that’s what makes the art!
Catch the shadows’
Framed in nuance.
Rich
Dichotomy—
People/ place
Image/ race
The blacks, the whites,
The greys.
Chronicle the transient.
The cityscape’s
staccato phrase.
Contemplate—
Scan,
Study,
Share
Betwixt
& between
The trying
Through to
the dying
In all our days….
As ocular echo…
Impression,
Or souvenir—
Archive,
Document,
Encapsulate,
Memoir, photograph, instrument—
Record
All… that… living!
II. Through the Lens: Legacy
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them…. (Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. Unanimous)
America…
“Armed in the cause of freedom”, 1
A legacy
two hundred and fifty years
demanding from a King,
vastly removed/across an ocean of arrogance and ambivalence,
before there was—
one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all—
WE
fought for
due process,
no taxation
without representation,
agency
& self-determination.
In this great city,
named as both challenge and mission—
the city of Brotherly love—
men of consequence and substance,
journeyed,
dared to dream of a nation
& make it real
To feel
Unafraid
to be free!
A legacy of righting wrongs
Speaking truth
To power
& not cowering to fear
heroic to hear
possibilities
In patriotic songs
Besting Great Britain’s jeers.
Beating back oppressors
Far and near.
As horizon ‘s hope appears.
Let’s be clear
No one
founding father, mother, ideology—
perfect…
falling and failing,
failing and falling
while yet, still struggling to
dream better than they could be.
Our ancestry great—
English, Irish, Italian, Polish, French
mixing,
with First Nation Peoples—
sometimes reluctantly –
Lene Lenape,
Conestoga,
Algonquian,
the Iroquo 2
along with
laboring Ibo,
Akan,
Wolof,
the Congolese
bargained and made fodder
for reservations or pejorative diminishings—
3/5ths of a man!
& for the most part,
“women” viewed no value at all….
Oh, what tangled webs we weave….
So many disparate others—
the gentry, the poor,
working class, tradesmen, runaways,
First Nation Peoples—
fighting the good fight
in exchange for liberty—
fighting for a nation…fighting for a home!
Two hundred and fifty years,
flawed
though some of them may have been,
fighting for freedom.
Fighting for home
While some things grow and change,
As we celebrate
our
semi quincentennial,
the question for each of us remains:
“What does freedom mean?”
III. Auto Focus: City Buildings, Stationary, Still Life
Clang, clang
Woosh
Boom
Clang, clang
Woosh
Boom
Clang, clang
Woosh
Boom
Beep, Beep!
Philly needs a song
Capturing the movement
The cityscape
The pulse,
The beat—
The grit
The heat
The swagger
& “the street” jawn
We bring
To everything.
No place like Philly
If you wanna move your feet
Dance,
Like they use to…
Down “South Street”;
Sing, rap, swing
Soak in the music,
melody,
culture—
it’s a
city thing—
an urban vibe…
fully alive!
From historic sights
To monuments
High,
tall and wide—
cement and steel.
Cheese steaks,
Hoagies
Baked goods—
grabbing
a meal.
Culinary
memories
make you wanna
squeal—
tastebuds
Of our childhoods.
Where
neighborhoods
thrive—
kept alive
with its own appeal.
Accents, dialects
Ethnic enclaves and
neighborhood
languages
speak—
Distinct!
More alike than unlike—
Brewery town,
Fishtown,
Germantown,
East Oak Lane,
South Philly,
West Philly,
K & A—
basically,
the same—
all
with the usual
hopes and dreams.
So many places
& spaces
To sneak a peak
from
Epic Broad Streets
East/west
Corridors
unique,
River to river
connecting
Nostalgic trolleys squeak,
Bus routes Winding
Subways shriek—
& El…evated Lines—
Massive public works
Uptown,
downtown
all the damn time—
& Temple (North).
Our founder,
Russell Conwell knew it
“Acres of diamonds”
Everywhere you look.
Clang, clang
Woosh
Boom
Clang, clang
Woosh
Boom
Clang, clang
Woosh
Boom
Beep, Beep!
Now
Philly has a song
expressing that special spiel
how the cityscape
just
can’t help but
Make you feel—
it’s in the pulsing beat,
Rhythm,
vibe
full of all its Zeal…
Philadelphia—
our hometown.
IV. Zoom: Stronger-together
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…. as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. (An excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, penned, July 4, 1776)
Where
do we go from here?
What
Does freedom mean?
On what
should we build hope upon?
Upon which principle
Should we lean?
Proud of a legacy,
acknowledging
our history.
There is no struggle
Without scars
proving
we as a people
can go far
accomplish anything
As long as we remember—
Humanity
The core inside—
Bonds
that make us great.
This
the human race—
Mankind—
Humankind…
The she and he of it all
Mortality—flesh and blood.
Expounded in Declarations.
The legacy of a nation—
Struggle
Survive
Band together
Forging revolutionary freedoms
To right the wrongs…
We—The People!
“America
America
God done shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good
With brotherhood
From sea to shining sea…” 3
More alike
Then we are different.
Stronger--together
(In the Black)
What does Freedom mean?
On what
Should we build hope upon?
From Philadelphia... the birthplace of freedom
Happy 250th--one nation under God!
© 2026 Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon
1 Belinda Sutton…(Belinda Sutton’s) the Massachusetts Court, February 14, 1783)
2 Richter, Daniel K. Native Americans and Pennsylvania. Tempe University Press. Philadelphia, PA. 2026. P. 37.
3 America the Beautiful, Katherine Lee Bates, 1911 version.