the desert

Did you choke as you jumped in

Why’d it have to snow in May 

Just as everything was hoping, it rained

You thanked the seasons and the saints

Believing each one was the same

Stepped into a city made of sand

And we would see the imprints here

If we ever came back

She gave May everything she had

She let her feet dry and crack 

Just to see some paint out on the land

And I can feel your heartbeat in my hand 

Couldn't tell if it was broken

But I could feel it pulse and pulse


The cottonwoods were gold this time of year

She gave all the water back just to show the sun that we were here

She gave her time to sit completely still

They thought she was dead

But she was only quiet

Let the rain fall, stain black down the canyon walls

Let the flash floods fill, what had once seemed empty back full

Saw the way you threw the plates

watched them smash to pieces

To prove that you were still awake 

That you didn’t need to speak

She let the walls crash down

Changing all the stream beds

The desert doesn’t make a sound

This one was screaming 

Let the rain fall, stain black down the canyon walls

Let the flash floods fill, what had once seemed empty back full

Saw you quiet down, watched you falling slowly 

And I could feel your heartbeat in my hand, couldn’t tell if it was broken

But I could feel it pulse and pulse

Let the rain fall, stain black down the canyon walls

Let the flash floods fill, what had once seemed empty back full

Let the rain fall, stain black down the canyon walls

Your eyes had opened twice so could they ever really close

I wrote this song shortly after my mother passed away, while I was on a canyoneering trip in Utah. This region is where I first received the news of her illness and months later, I found myself there grieving her death. I was moved by the way the environment could transform before our eyes, a place that at times felt quiet and almost dead, held so much life. Years later I realized the way this landscape gave room for my processing. My memories flooded in, like the rain through the canyons, allowing space for transformation within myself. The final arrangement came together as a ballad to this fragile yet powerful ecosystem and to the complexity of life and loss. When someone’s presence surrounds you in the emptiness and how death can open your eyes to life.