Prism

"To make more than is there"

“Take Another Little Piece of My Heart” by Abuko Estrada

Last weekend Vere and I visited Tessa and Ryan in Seattle to see Rilo Kiley on the last stop of the first leg of their reunion tour. They put on an incredible show. You could feel the collective goosebumps spread all over the crowd of aging millennials. Lots of good company. The opening act was Morgan Nagler joined by Orenda Fink (from Azure Ray). I don’t know how I haven’t heard Morgan Nagler before, but her set was amazing and I have been listening to her on a repeat since the show. I recommend checking out her work.

Thanks to all the new subscribers who signed up for the Bright Eyes Cassadaga series. I am really loving the experience of swimming in that album and can’t wait to share more soon. I have some exciting updates coming. In between those posts, I’m going to continue using this space to share poems, essays, and songs about whatever it is that is in my head that week.

Here’s a song I recently stumbled across that was recorded by the immensely talented Haley Rose that I wrote with Meredith Wilder and dressed up with the talents of Ken Broyles, Hiram Camp, and Alex McMahon.

A Balloon Embarks

And here’s a poem I wrote this week. It’s about finding meaning where it may not seem like you can.

Prism

We play with prism light
Holding in our hands the key
To make more than is there

In the rust-eaten gas park
Or clean rain from the poison lake
Redemption stretches its
impossible palms into ours

I imagine the starlight laughing
As it peers in on this moment
At all the impermanent pain
And collapses in on itself
Just to make a point

The story sleeps in our bodies
Thick as the sap of pines
The sour scent never strays
While mosquitoes trade our blood
And leave our ankles bumpy
And itchy and red and ugly

This is where we must lay our claim
In the drain of dying urgent things
To be washed over with vivid ennui
With which we make our dispersion
Fragmenting in the stillest violet
Momentum in the indigo
Becoming an apostate to the cynics

I will make peace with
Whatever beauty can be mustered
In this tired life