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The Meadow

by Noel'le Longhaul

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1.
we chased each other round the pond! we were held by the wake of the lake in the water and we taught one another how to swim, and what we were swimming in. our bodies were offerings to the glittering dark! The glittering mirror! we gave our ghosts back to each other and we gave our ghosts away. and i wonder what you did with mine?
2.
I'll meet you at the door, you said we'll walk the corridor, you said with the pine needles on the floor, you said they have a gift for you. so don't say anything. touch the spark to the papery bark and the flame will rise and it will come inside. come inside. stay the night: oh stay the night. Oh, hello my ghost i didn't know how far you'd go i've missed you so.
3.
throw open every window in this house, i would like to get out. not far now. ..............the clearing opens, and the trees bend down.
4.
............ oh at last, the glow has ceased. wait for me. oh at last, this had better be........
5.
6.
oh, cry rays in the sky family, blood lines god speaking through my tin can lips i speak in static
7.
I looked at the ice that has yet to freeze at a lake far away from me i saw myself walk towards where the light was trapped i heard the silence of the snow i heard the ice snap i saw the hole and the dark water below dear house on the shore let me be your ghost dear white house with the heavy door and the little loose lock and the wilting floor may i come in i'll be a fawn in the dawn or a whistle in the firepit a pencil in your drawer, too short for sharpening a leak in the ceiling and a cup for you to catch it in oh i'll be a light in your window in the night let me be your ghost be my eyes i'll be your throat. I will blow through your rafters and shake you with laughter i will hallow your hollow halls--i will sleep in your walls. I will wail well.
8.
Alide 07:21
Alide's bag was full of tools full of fire and full of fuel she left on a sunny day full of needles in the hay she paused at the fence and slipped into the crack she leaned against and sewed up the hole with thread spun from her mother's hair of gold she left behind her shoes buckled boots of blue and a bundle of seeds to spring up after the freeze and wrap around the knees of the lookers. So leave what was left for it was left with intent unless you are hell bent on knowing what took her. Oh, Alide! If I could, I would be a ship that would bear you across the world. You would lay down in my cabin with all my flags unfurled. But I feel like a heavy arrow on a sapling bow that saps your strength to bend I feel like a tattered robe that's your only clothes that takes all your time to mend. And Alide said her goodbyes early in July With white clouds whittling away at the blue heart of the sky wove the lyre and the drum with the setting of the sun into a brilliant disguise. Oh, summer's slow burn. Divining rod points toward the broad of the water below the hill. the rain ran off to the riverbed and Alide is running still. To where the birds offer worship in their airy churches and the ghosts all eat their fill. Oh, Summer's slow burn. Willow The Wisp, escaping my lips like light on the window sill. touch and go like a kiss on the nose from autumn's early chill. Wait wait wait for the opening of the gate or for your full cup to spill.
9.
10.
We are used to this heartbreak: having power over what is smaller. We have knives, we have talking oh we have hours and hours, we think this is all ours. Run Rabbit Run! The only way you own anything is when it's yours to give. You only own yourself because this is your life to live. Run Rabbit Run! The sun set singing well along with our feet fall ringing bells bellowing below the black bracken stacked in the fallen and the felled A Grove A Grave A Gathering Glow the tunnels dance and twist below and my body knows it and holds me close tethered to a dream of blue and green by a bright light it is gold and clean it is fire i am kindling I know I am a hunter but I am also a hare I know I am the wild but I am also a snare
11.
Red Horse 03:13
Oh yearning flame tangling of manes two bodies in the grove like logs burning in the woodstove. It is your legs open on the needles and your hands on my throat you cannot feel the wind here in the thicket of the grove. While your hand was in my mouth the smoke was drifting south it was the black smoke that bred me from the chimney’s spout. It was the open world that fed me with its bread so brown. It was the little smoking chimnies and the ice upon the pond. It was the hawthorne and its berries the unfurling of the frond. Forty lashes in the windblown forty pines that lash the sky forty hoofprints in the meadow forty lashes on your eye. Oh! Hold me down and hit me though I will bite the bit. I will gallop smooth and quickly beneath your saddle and your whip. I’m a red horse on a white hill you will not tame my force though my mane lies still. See my panting frame and call out my name— but if I steam in the snow, let me stay in the meadow. If I do not come back to you find another who reeks of leather and the barn who you can ride into the dawn.
12.
walk a little down the trail with a little sloshing tin pail knowing not the way you go but seeking the great meadow there is always water without fail there is always an inn there is always ale. leaves are laughing oh dear wind fill us up so we can breathe you again this world is mighty but also hurting like everything we are learning we build nests in the fog. I hope you will know what you put here to do. I hope you will run like the stars taught you to. Build your heart into a bridge then cross over it full of flowers and fire oh the ___________ door don't let them take it from you though they will try to tie the red string around the memory of went missing build nests in the fog
13.
Hope: Always a stone's throw away. Home: Always built of stones. Storm: We are sticks for you to blow away. Home, Storm: Everywhere we stay we are stowaways.
14.
Halo, halo halo around the sumac grove. Lay down in the grove. You know this place like you got born you know the wind that sweeps through this corridor you can feel it all funneling in from the north the familiar needles of the forest floor all the times you were welcomed through its door The twisting of hair in the jaws of the snare there is blood on the snow there is a halo the trees are turning The trees stand apart or nestled in groves but in some dark places they're all in rows the shadows are deep in the gathering glow and you walk between them the wind calls down o the great open north where I'm bound i must trust in the dusk i must trust in the way you all release up through your eyes and your face i must trust that fingers hold me though there are many miles to sleep i must trust when we wake up i often do not we will see the same dawn we will see the same dawn we will travel on, we will travel on
15.
I could find someone new but i don't want to i could find somewhere new but i don't want to the pond is thick with ice that's sounding pretty nice have you got skates i… i love the plants all along your wall i love the spring summer and the fall it's winter now i… there's a light peeking through the door i see it on your floor will you turn it off i know i see it constantly but when i'm with you i don't want to
16.
my heart lurks like a bird of prey in a dark place it issues smoke shows signs of hope it knows you won't get away.
17.
belonging longing long arms reaching iron nail descending slow down there is a fire burning below everything it is not hell but it scares me just the same i gather grass i stoke the flame i hear the name
18.
if there are loons here they're trapped beneath the ice closing their red eyes (oh the eyes, the ice--what could hold the light better than) come warm yourself by the fire it will be gone soon good luck warming yourself by the moon i will wear your shroud like a scudding cloud weaving in and out of the face flitting fast across the moon. oh the gloom. i will hide in my little green cloak even as all the smoke fills up the room: oh, the gloom. dear friend scarecrow up in the tree bough please tell me i wanna know how how did you get uppa there today they put you in the ground i figured that was where you would stay. A lady came walking by with a tin pail with wind in her hair tied into a pig tail she said that her name was Alide and she asked me for mine I said I never got one she said they're not too hard to find I told her about all the little birdies all a tweeting and a perchin all around over me and i never understood just why i should make them afraid ii told her that was all that i thought about names theyre for scaring you and make you play someone else's game "oh scarecrow--havn't you ever wanted to be a little birdie?"
19.
20.

credits

released October 22, 2013

Many thanks to Nathan BD for playing accordion on a few of these tracks, and to Cea for listening to these songs over and over again and bearing with me through my obsessive/manic working fashion. Thanks also to Ahna, Sofia, Link, Alidea, Laura, Anthony, Lior, Niko, Justin, Jeff, and all my other friends for the love and support.

Noel'le Longhaul: Writing, Banjo, Percussion, Drums, Guitar, Casio, Voice, Violin, Piano Guts
Nathan Bergmann-Dean: Accordian

Recorded and Mixed at home in Providence, RI.

"Oh These Fiery Heights! Oh My Burning Feet of Fire!"
--Excerpted with permission from Algernon Blackwood's "The Wendigo."

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Noel'le Longhaul Montague, Massachusetts

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