1. |
Bronwyn
04:46
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the brilliance of the day waits for you to wake again,
patient in the way i waited for you to love me again
bronwyn, i lost the song
gone when i sang
bronwyn, i lost the way home where i knew
the ground smokes as it burns to hell
release me from this sweltered land i stand
holding to the shepherd’s hand
the man praised and punished me too
bronwyn, i lost the song
gone when i sang
bronwyn, i lost the way home where i knew how to love you and be loved too
it was an honor to have loved you, an honor to have been
buried in the ruin and held til the end
to have woken inside you, in the hollow hand
aching and frought in the face of god i do not
flinch at the blinding sight of light
i press to the chest for a breath of life
i kneel down and pray
bronwyn, i heard the song in the vanishing day
bronwyn, i laid you down at the mouth of the cave
for no one is mine to hold and no one holds still
and no one is left behind
and no one remains
but loss as the centerfold as the heart swells
to loosen the ribs
loosen the ribs loosen the ribs
loosen the ribs
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2. |
Keeper of the Shepherd
06:26
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look back to see how dark it gets
pulled to the knees how hard it let me
keep the shape of shame, keep naming every sin
to keep loving what cannot love me back
i cannot love you without me
i cannot live without me
i cannot be kept without me
i cannot be without me
i hold to my father's
heart dying in my arms
i died too, i died too
i lost you, i lost me within you
i cannot live without me
i cannot be kept without me
i cannot love you without me
i cannot be without me
i keep close to my spirit i
keep learning to hear it
without him, without you, within me
without it, with no one i keep me
i cannot be kept without me
i cannot be here without me
i cannot love you without me
i cannot be without me to be the keeper to be the shepherd i am the keeper of the shepherd
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3. |
Woolgathering
05:20
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wake in the wound remembering where the endings
fragment memory
it takes absence to feel presence
it takes time to become what you are
breathing in water
hearing the river whispering
blind prayer, finding what was left behind
woolgathering, unbinding what was never mine
meet me where the heart beats
where the shadows shade the heat
love me wounded
hold me where my
edges soften
give me time to free my lungs
the ribs are loosening
the life breathes in
the life breathes in
blind prayer, finding what was left behind
woolgathering, unbinding what was never mine
blind prayer, finding what was left behind
woolgathering, unbinding what was never mine
never mine
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4. |
Floodplain
04:21
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the birch tree bark stripped bare, the bones and the bodies decay there naked as the moss grows over in time as the loss goes through the dam to
loosen you in my heart through the vein
the pain draws beneath
the floodplain
the riverbed is filled with husks of lead the dusk is turning to give and return,
the measure of our love was yearning for
more than we could carry more than we have buried in
the floodplain
i sang to you every day, i waited every night for you to come in the music of our memory each sound resounds too loudly to hear as the grief swells silent in time
as the song resolves dissonant
i know too much to love that way again
know too well to lose my way again
know too well to give away again
know too well to know when it's not
real love
i want to be wanted
don't want to be forgotten but want to forget
i want to be shaped by the love i have not haunted by the lack
i want to be released from the growing pain
in the floodplain
the floodplain
how long have i kept you
how long have i kept the light on
how long have i been
gone
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5. |
Husk
04:59
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death sings
river rising
stone hollowed
death is a husk
drying out a field in heat
sunblind
i am opening
trillium hums
i am growing
understories
death sings
leaves lilting the light
death is a thread
measuring time
burning a candle
guiding a life
to be alive
i am
decaying within me
without me
i am an elegy
memory echoing
death is a husk
holding the shape of my life
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6. |
Vacant Intimacies
05:28
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god i mourn my body
mourn the worn woman in me
child seeking a shelter
child keeping the open wound
i want the one who's gone
i want the one who's gone
i want the one who's gone
i want the one who's gone
i remember every empty hand
every echoing cave that never gave back
i remember every hollow home grasping to the absence
haunted by the lack grasping to the absence
haunted by the vacant intimacies
vacant intimacies
vacant intimacies
vacant intimacies
to fear feeling the fracture, healing the compounded loss
to fear leaving the rapture, hearing the silence song
i want the one who's gone, i want the one who's gone
i want the one who's gone, i want the one who's gone
i remember every empty hand,
every echoing cave that never gave back
i remember every hollow home
grasping to the absence, haunted by the lack
grasping to the absence, haunted by the
vacant intimacies
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7. |
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i laid down as the field burned
quarry of origin stories born before me
i listen for voices vanishing
life in petrified wood
could i remember what i never knew
life in a taproot buried underneath the
haunted landscape echoing cave
haunted landscape echoing cave
birthed by returning to the ruins, the shelter gone
unearthed by learning how to live through it
shaped by the hollow
black crows circling
the deer in buckthorn decayed and torn
the snake in the riverbed shedding form
the bones grow through the
haunted landscape echoing cave
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Hannah Frances Chicago, Illinois
hannahfrancesmusic.com
Hannah Frances (b. 1997) is a vocalist, guitarist, composer, poet, and movement artist melding avant-folk, progressive rock, and jazz.
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