From the recording Threadbare Songs
Some anniversaries don’t show up on the calendar, but our bodies remember them anyway. The smell of smoke, the crunch of leaves, the sound of cicadas and suddenly the grief is right there again.
This song is about how memory lingers in the body, how pain and healing can co-exist, and how even when the mind forgets, love and mercy run deeper still.
This is also my Week 39 entry for the Wildwood Songwriting Contest - Write a song about anniversaries.
Lyrics
VERSE 1
The dry leaves of fall crunching under my feet
A pulse of adrenaline, lightning and heat
Faces spin past like a slot machine wheel
One comes into focus, skin ashen and still
Empty eyes, no expression, look straight through my own
And the cries of your mother, a deafening tone
I shutter and stumble; it must be November
The mind lets it fade, but the body remembers
VERSE 2
The crackle and smoke of the campfire logs
Cicadas are singing their back catalogue
Aching like fingernails digging through skin
Anxiety weighs on my chest, caving in
If the body remembers, does healing forget?
Or is love in the marrow, still unfinished yet?”
The memory glows like a slow-burning ember
The mind lets it fade, but the body remembers
BRIDGE
The mind lets it fade, but the body remembers
Still, mercy runs deep in my blood and the embers.
An icy wind blowing straight through to December
The mind lets it fade, but the body remembers
END
I shutter and stumble; it must be November
The memory glows like a slow-burning ember
Healing surrounds me, it lingers, it enters
The mind lets it fade, but the body remembers