"...last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane, but last year’s bitter loving must remain" - Edna St. Vincent Millay

A small song cycle about memories.

“the willow and the storm”

It takes one storm to end hundreds of years of progress. I love trees, and as a newcomer to this town I wandered in search of arboreal treasures. A glorious weeping willow stood not too far from our new house... I never imagined a soul so old and sturdy could be broken the way it was. It's impossible to imagine all it had witnessed.


“where we used to live”

My weekly travels bring me past many prior homes. Each represents both growth and loss... time passes and allows for both decay and new life. Maybe it’s human for the darkness of past lives to be closer to the surface than the light, or maybe those are just the lives I lived. Finally arriving in a safe place makes exploring those memories less dangerous.


“not coming home”

An unexpected death sometimes leaves unanswerable questions for those who are left behind. Nothing can be said.


“crossing white’s bridge”

Legend has it that in his youth my grandfather walked on his hands across White’s Bridge. The bridge spans a small stream on a tidal flat in Newbury, MA near Old Town Hill and not too far from the ocean and Newburyport. I’ve been taking my boys there for years to watch the sun set on the marsh, or to undertake more boy-ish activities like throwing sticks into the water, or trying to break the ice that’s been left behind by the receeding tide. My grandfather is never far from my mind when we’re there. The land and the water feel timeless... and I imagine him as a boy seeing the same amber landscape, and the same trees, water, and sky that we do today.