Naming These Stars

from Cave Times by The Other Elements (T.O.E)

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lyrics

Naming These Stars

My eyes adjusted to the darkness and things began to emerge in the evening air I didn’t know were there. I was watching the water and the way it slid over the rocks so easily. So fluidly, I guess. I imagined the shapes they were to begin with and how the flow had softened it all so. Smoothed the rough edges into comforting curves and angles. There was moss underneath me like a soft quilt handed down through generations and I wanted to sleep but my heart was still beating to the pulse of the crickets all around. They seemed so loud and sharp and thin next to the low, steady thump in my ears. I closed my eyes to the night

Hope tonight I’m the way water moves
Hope tonight I’m a cloud across the sky
I’m the chill in the air and the breath you inhale
Hope tonight I hope you’ll abide

I tried to take it all in; to let it wash over me and soften my edges.
Laying on my back looking to the trees, the clouds would part occasionally to reveal a sliver of moon and some planet or other. Hope would know the names, I never paid much attention to such things but tonight I wanted to know. I wanted to see everything, to blow the clouds free from the sky like sneezing on a table full of coke but the little infrequent glimpses had to be enough for right now. I listened for the sound of voices or dogs or helicopters, anything that might stand out in the quiet of the night

Hope tonight are you naming these stars
Hope tonight there are things in the wind
And there’s something that smells like a horse
Hope tonight I hope you’ll begin

It was only ever natural noises filling my head. My pulse slowed and my body cooled in the thin October air. I wished I could crawl inside the moss and into the earth, to become a part of everything around me and I realized how disconnected I felt and how disconnected we all were. How impossibly busy and distracted I always felt and how I wished to slow it all down. I thought of the budist who could that; who could slow down their pulse and just breathe.

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from Cave Times, released April 1, 2016

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The Other Elements (T.O.E) Portsmouth, New Hampshire

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