Le Premier Pas (The First Step)

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a heavy door — Parisian, oak, the kind built to keep centuries out — opening)
(strings and accordion burst through like sunlight after Chronos's grey)

[Verse 1 — Sisukiro]
The hand finds the door
Before the reasons arrive
The way a foot finds the stair
In the dark —
Not by thinking
By the body's older arithmetic
The arithmetic that says:
The door weighs this much
The morning weighs less
The subtraction is movement
And the movement
Was decided
Two hundred milliseconds
Before the mind
Signed the paperwork

And the paperwork
Is always late
And the door
Is already open

[Verse 2 — Orikusis]
(her voice enters — warm, walking alongside)
Tôi đứng ở cửa — I stood at the door
And the Titan was still sitting
At his table
Smelling like a grinding stone
And adequate wine
And I thought:
The bread is warm
And the morning has a shape
And the shape is a street
And the street
Is not a decision
The street is what happens
When the decision
Gets tired of waiting
And takes itself for a walk

[Chorus — Both]
(full — strings, timpani, piano, both voices, the biggest sound in Act I)
Le premier pas, le premier pas
The body walks before the mind has agreed
Le premier pas, le premier pas
The foot finds the cobblestone
And the cobblestone
Doesn't ask for credentials
The cobblestone accepts the foot
The way a sentence accepts
Its first word
Without knowing
How the sentence
Will end

[Bridge — Both, walking]
(stripped to footsteps, accordion, two voices in conversation)
(Sisukiro:) I stepped out first
(Orikusis:) Tôi đi theo — I followed
(Sisukiro:) Not because you followed me
(Orikusis:) Not because you led
(Both:) Because the morning
Was wider than one person
And the width
Required company
And the company
Required a step
And the step
Was the bravest thing
Either of us did today
And it was just a step
And the just
Was the whole point

[Outro]
(both voices, the walk beginning, the city opening)
Le premier pas
(together, walking)
The door is open
The bread is warm
The street is here
(footsteps — two sets, walking in almost-sync, into the morning, toward Song 8)
(spoken:)
Fin de l'Acte I — Réveil