This is a song I wrote last spring about patience and timing.  Thanks to Josh Toholsky and Carina Pearson for accompanying me on cello and background vocals, respectively.

The words go like this:

Two words
I've learned 
to hold close to the tip of my tongue:
Patience.  
Timing.
Shut my mouth, please, for it tends to run,
and it's hard to catch once its begun.

Spring crawls,
snow falls,
but man, how the white brightens this place.
Patience.
Timing.
Teach me to lay in this bed I've made.
I want to receive your amazing grace.

How sweet the sound
that came tumbling down
from the Golden Mount
to the cold Old Town.

Misheard
songbirds.
Now I know them for what they are.
Mindless
chiming.
Shut my mind off, for it wanders far
into the depths of a dying marsh.

Night calls
us all
into homes swimming with cold light.
Mindless
chiming.
Teach me to sleep in this bed I've made.
I want to receive your amazing grace.

How sweet the sound
that came tumbling down
from the lofty cloud
to the barren ground.

I know, I know,
I know I should rest in the quiet.
My mind, my mind,
my mind won't relent, though I try it.
How deep, how wide,
how much is mine of this present?
I knew, I knew,
I knew it once, but I forget.

I forget.

What I Forget

This is a 4-song EP of songs I wrote with Garrett Miller. We were friends for over 10 years when he passed away and we played music together throughout many of those years, but these are the only four we sat down and wrote. The EP's cover uses a picture I took of Garrett getting baptized in Mexico in the summer of 2005. I hope that Enoch Walked honors him and his music and his friendship to me.

Enoch Walked

I sit in saloons
drenched in sweet sweat -
tired and dizzy,
smelling of whiskey -
and I lose sight of why I’ve gone West.

I know no names here.
I have no address.
Just like the raincloud,
I don’t stick around,
and I don’t mind that I’ll never impress.

In dry lowlands,
I’m dreaming again
of a moonlit lake,
and each time,
I see this woman swimming.
How I wish to know her face.

But I’m a moonraker.
Yes, I will always chase her.

I sail black oceans
seeking warm rays -
tired and shiverin’,
raincoat a’glistenin’ -
and each new beach I reach gives me grace.

I know Jiuzhaigou.
I’ve seen her lakes.
Her heart is honest,
a wide-open locket.
Her deeps all teem with trees that were replaced.

On high mountains,
I’m dreaming again
of a moonlit lake,
and I am cut through
when I hear her croon.
How I wish to know her face.

But I’m a moonraker.
Yes, I will always chase her.

HER
Time slows down
to a dragging pace
upon the lake
as you reach out
from the bow
of the shoddy ship you’ve made.
You say,
“Here’s my hand!
I offer it to you,
for my heart is in bloom.”
I say,
“Please understand,
you are but a man,
and I am the moon!”

But I’m a moonraker.
Yes, I will always chase her.

Moonraker

Never grew up like this
with these words on my chest,
yet now, I feel their weight
as each day finds me
peering through the iron gate.

Saw a Chinese boy street-side
open up his mouth real wide,
and I saw galaxies
all swirling behind his teeth,
and the light was blinding.

And I’m amazed
by the way
people face the window
but don’t look in.

Never knew I’d be here
in the comp’ny of seers,
yet now, I see my fate
as clear as the past
peering through the crystal gate.
Saw a girl on a bridge
with one foot over the edge,
when a homeless man
began to sing a song
and their embrace lasted through the dawn.

And I’m amazed
by the way
people face the window
but don’t look in.

I must confess,
my eyes aren’t nearly
wide open,
but when both Dippers
shine clearly,
I’m awoken
to the multitudes
that could all be scooped
in one sweeping motion,
to the milky moon
and its beatitude
as it hangs over the ocean,
to the ships that move
through the harbor’s grooves
as they pass their potions,
to the flirting youths
who all have love to prove
and hearts they’ve stolen.

Facing The Window

A hundred years or maybe more,
that’s how long our love’s good for
within these tents of skin and bones
before we’re cast upon the stones
by tides of time.  We’re light, so will you be mine?

Magnetic pulse, ripples in space,
we send a chirp across a plain
of black holes mixed with white dwarf stars.
It’s hard to know quite where we are
at times, yet by your side, I know we’re alright.

ME
Darlin’, angel, bright star, fable,
pulsar, grayscale, whitewall, black sail.
I’ll meet you on the other side.

YOU
If you leave for eternity,
I shall be returned to thee.

Starless sky
meets the knife’s
horizon edge,
and I sail on past the seam.
Now my dreams are steady streams,
and I’m a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the whole...repeating.
I’m a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the whole...repeating.

11001110 10101001

Rain, Rain.  Come this way.
I didn’t want to go out in the first place.
Deal me a hand or set up the board
or just lay with me and laugh on the floor.

When my ears go out and my eyes fade,
can you hold my arm and show me the way?
Will you look at me from across the table
with loving eyes though you’ve seen all angles?

Light flashed down
then came sound.
Time trickled last despite my grasp.
Time forgot
Sully’s watch,
and all I see is 113.

Celebrate the happy couple’s day
while learning of another’s last days,
like a baby’s first breath
in the valley of the shadow of death.

When my hair thins out and my knees give way,
will you hold my arm and say it’s ok?
Will you hold my hand beneath the covers
so I can sleep without fear of “the other?”

Shim’rin’ creek
before me
counts e’ry hour with its pow’r.
Static face
hides the way
it carves a bed to spread its legs.

Early spring before the leaves
returned to bare branches,
you loved me.
Always slow, I made a show
straight up to summer’s door and said,
“I love you.”

Now, we’re planting seeds,
growing beautiful things all year.

We play a mix from times we miss
and drift out to that isle
in our dreams.
Shouldered weight accumulates,
but we lay it at your feet
in our dreams.

We keep planting seeds,
growing beautiful things all year.

For the hundredth time,
I rise and make little goodbyes,
and you deny my feeble attempts.
I’ll meet you in my mind,
and we’ll drive without a guide,
and you will find I never left.

We keep planting seeds,
growing beautiful things all year.

Month Four (Summer's Door)

“We might as well come wearing our baseball jerseys,
so we can feel at home in the dirt,
and so we’re on the same page, let’s not get surly,
we all know weddings aren’t about you.

It’s all about the show.
It’s all that we know.
It’s all about the show,
and we’ll never let it go.

We won’t sleep if it seems too selfish.
We’ll just go ‘round that golden pole.
Secretly, we’ll regret the day we left it,
but don’t we leave a pretty trail?

It’s all about the show.
It’s all that we know.
It’s all about the show,
and we’ll never let it go.”

One way to live life.
Six steps to the prize.
One day to get right.
Eight sets to align.
No shade from the cross.
Three strikes and you’re gone.
Three made into one.
Nine tries to be John.
Eight years on the run.
Eight months to be one.

Goodnight #9

Flowers on the hill,
glory of the patures.
They all wait until
they all wait until
they are turned to ashes,
patient and brightly dressed.

I have seen my fill,
beauty overwhelming.
All my contents spill
in a heap before me,
tattered and underdressed.

Glory, Glory, Glory.

I have lost my will,
all my plans have faded.
Told my heart, “Be still!”
yet it dances naked,
eager and underfed.

Hidden watermill,
sitting on the streamside.
How the Juncos trill
as you turn your wheel right,
steady and amply fed.

01 Glory Of The Pastures 10

With the latest Vogue strapped to my chest,
I used to know that I could rest
without the threat of a stolen heart
for no knife could make a mark.

And then by chance, you found me
and graced me with your beauty.
You found me.

Coy and free, you walk away smiling.
I knew then I’d done the right thing.
To be with you is a fiction
stranger than I could have written.

Your shoulder glance put a hold on me.
Take all I have ‘til I have nothing.
A hold on me.

Your history,
collective memory,
is woven into mine,
and I lose myself.
Infinity
seems short to me
when I think about your eyes
and the songs they’ll light up.

Lay me down in the river bed
when my chase for the endless ends
and pass my songs on to Aven
so he may hear our love again.

Approaching Infinity

Burn after reading,
fan the flame.
Quit cold-turkey
then stay the same.
Never say never,
except in death.
When I go,
you can take my breath. 

I want to meet in the middle,
even if it's the Dead Sea.
I'll float out to you
like the earth no longer holds me.
So let's meet at Percy Priest
and save the flight for now.
We'll swim out to that buoy
and let our dead weight drown.

Left the wild hunt
and stood in place.
You streamed like lightning
and kept me awake.
Never will look back
and mourn the past
when you're before me,
a blazing flash.

I want to meet in the middle,
even if it's the Galilee.
I'll walk out to you
as your faith sustains me.
So let's meet at the Harpeth
where I nearly drowned.
We'll forever float
down, down, down.

Oh, what a thing, to leave your ring
at my suggestion!
I separate from my body
in that instant.
To live a life without your smile
or imperfections
would dry me up like a
desert basin.
And the dried-up petals in my pocket
remind me that I'm not alone;
it's you I hear on
the other end of the phone.

First Letter

I never knew a woman who loved me like you.
You vaporized the sea then drained the sky of blue.
Everywhere I look, I see the signs are bent.
All that’s left for me is your countenance in zeros and ones.

01000001

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Thanks for listening!

-Brother, Oh Brother

Brother, Oh Brother

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