Everything All At Once (Song)
I posted this poem a year ago and it had this footnote:
Well, today it is one… a demo at least. It features a missed chord/note or three. One day I’ll have the patience to make it more professional. Hope you enjoy it.
Everything All At Once
It’s green, now it’s gold. It’s a Flannery
sky unending. The crow on the Sound thinks
it found music, and so it is.
There’s the dawn, on the hill and it’s
lit up like a rhythm with the shade pulling
weight, hitting god between the eyes.
Ticker tape says her name. Proof of loving
proof of lasting. Do away with the rings
that coat the inside of the pines.
I could tell by the leaves, at one time.
Felt the name on my tongue.
Grandmother or a white pine.
Everything all at once.
Settled in and I felt the timeline reach
forward and back and to the side.
Took a knee and said I’m grateful for
this light to hide behind.
Brush the grief under the rug. Well
it’s soil, now it’s sprouting. You and me,
just inside, with our names and the night.
There’s a line from the moon connecting
every riptide to the stars, to us all —
mistaking wind for signs.
I could tell by the leaves, at one time.
Felt the name on my tongue.
Grandmother or a white pine.
Everything all at once.
Settled in and I felt the timeline reach
forward and back and to the side.
Took a knee and said I’m grateful for
this light to hide behind.
On a trip to Colorado, my brother and I tried to memorize the difference between pine trees. Yellow pines, white pines, etc. each have different needle counts, but I was having a hard time remembering which was which. A few months later I was (again) trying to recall the distinguishing characteristics and, as my pneumonic devices were malfunctioning, all I could think about was my grandma. The more I thought about the names of the trees, grandmother seemed a more apt name for the tree, regardless of accuracy. Suddenly, memories of her came rushing back. Ever since then I’ve been more tuned in to phrases like “mother tree” and I’ve been able to hold my grandma more front of mind more often.
For me, this song is about the accordion-like feeling of time, memory and how recollection comes in ways and moments that you aren't expecting. It’s about the currently living and the otherwise, coming into being together and looking over/after each other. Certain lines also try to visually turn landscape into musical notation, most notably in the second verse. Throughout, crows “sing”, patches of shade simulate rests and the waves hold a steady rhythm despite the fact that everything is flooding in.