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Wish for Waiting
10:32
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Face up to know sky signs passing slow. Scan around: outbreak of faces down. Hours fold, flow past, rub raw rotting oaks, sunrise, misread smoke. One wish to wait: nothing needs to be late. Household sinks to earth, drowned in gold. No closing: rusted latch, broken spring. Half right: lush lives touch light. Half wrong: turn back, scale the night. One wish to wait: nothing needs to be late.
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2. |
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See youself as you walk down. Seaweed gliding past the coast. Wring the blood out from your phone. Name your home and pull it close. Move your house above the flood. Climb the ladder to your door. Divine some future in the dry where ash and rain don’t coat our floors. I will not see my neighborhood. You’ll do what can’t be done. No high patience to protect. Reach out past the empty one. Hills will seep and gnash their teeth. The golden cave will wash away. Jewels will burn under our feet. The arch of glass will crack today. Watch yourself letting go. Any time: You’ll never know. I will not see my neighborhood. You’re down the Colorado, getting lost at every turn to meet the place you’re letting go. I will not see your neighborhood mesmerized by dams, shifting forward up the street until we cross into the sand. And the rivers will rush, needing more than they know, just the same. And the rivers will rush, needing more than they know, just the same. And the rivers will rush, needing more.
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3. |
Borax
06:02
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One-hundred eleven: the devil is here. I walk into the water, watch the sun overpower. On an island of mercy in a sea of heat. The thinker he worshipped lost his mind in this desert, bounced string melodies off the rocks in the evening. But his handprints don’t show. They don’t wave to me now. Because I could not live like a hard bitten man dying down in a sinkhole, staring at shiny metal, I will watch the team go up the vanishing road. And they let the screen guide them: the wrong kind of attention. The van falls off a cliff, takes the future with it. Could’ve golfed in the shade, as the lawns wilt away. They shout until they’re blue in the face. They dive into the deep of the basin. I see them return. It’s not like a movie. The coyotes don’t see me. I try not to go out after nine in the morning. Birds drop out of the sky. I don’t want to be left behind. Then life springs up from under my feet. I know it’s trying to tell me something. I kneel in the sand and it whispers to me. It says I belong. It says I belong.
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4. |
Strata Slow Dance
07:39
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To have the life of the face of a cliff, to open out, feel the wind layered in, and not to hold movements that fracture us, and know you fold every shape into your house. We’re settling, pressuring underground. So let it turn like it wants to. Silt out doubt. To lift tides, roots, moss, shade, fire, sun. And not to shout, “Hurry! I have to run.”
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5. |
Marie
08:56
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Won’t you help me, my sister Marie? Hope you don’t hold what you see against me. Last six months I’ve been out of control. Things don’t make sense the way that we know. Give me a hand I’d be proud to hold. Took a ride around town last week just to see the blades of grass shining, but all the lawns that I passed had gone dry. I felt the tears return to my eyes. I let the wind come return me to life. Mercenaries camp out at my door, ask me why I don’t want any more, but I could ask that of anyone else. They know the specter at the edge of their health, those creatures swimming way down in the well. Heard that dad won’t talk to you either. He claims the new year hasn’t started yet here. Well he can think what he wants: disregard his words, those notions he caught, disregard all those people he lost. Hold me close, I won’t forget. Please remember you can’t lose my respect. Even though you must think so little of me, hope you can stand me, my sister Marie. Hope you still love me, my sister Marie. I’m still fascinated by fireflies. They imitate a thing that’s barely alive. Birds and trees and the shouting of kids, try to take it all into myself. This room’s an ocean, you’re the continental shelf. So much distance between you and me. Try to swim all the way across the sea. If I feel tired and cold, let that be. I’m so glad you won’t let me leave. Can I sing to you, my sister Marie?
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6. |
Wildfire Song
08:14
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Burst out through the side door, choking on the air, nose under my t-shirt. Thought to hide beneath the Blue Wave until it passed. It spiraled, caught, and swung. I left the water there. My friend’s house got it first. He set out for the ocean, and now I have to follow to hear his voice again. One hundred fists on door frames. I had ten endless minutes. I pushed the rearview sideways. I let it go so fast. Hope it holds you as the waves come crashing. Missed opportunity. Care a different way tomorrow. Step back twice, reorganize, help it grow, and have it show us what we owe. A empty place is not a thing. Walk upstairs. A thousand years, a covering. To shape it like it wants us to, to leave it right, to see it reach another time. Another season says it so it captures us. Hope it holds you so you know.
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Distant Reader recommends:
Infinite Futures
by Full Spectrum Records
The real life rock 'n' roll of the future.
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Hands in Our Names
by Karima Walker
One of the most fascinating works of music about the American West I've ever heard.
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Fundamentals of Orchid Biology
by David Tagg
Irreducible chiaroscuro beauty.
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Build A Mountain Where Our Bodies Fall
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supported by 4 fans who also own “Sea Level”
This is the album that has gotten me through the pandemic. It has provided peace when peace was nowhere else to be found. It has provided joy when joy was elusive. It has inspired gratitude when darkness and cynicism have crept in. Thank you Andrew.
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Influenced by music of the Pacific Northwest, drowse riffs on detachment, memory and the relationship to "self."
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