Lyrics – Invisible Threads

Track Index

01 Invisible Threads
02 Bright Underwing
03 Septemberlight

Invisible Threads

2019

In the years since we scattered
So much has been shattered
Where have we all been?
And now for some reason or other we fell back together
And we huddle like goats turned out on the bright cold green
We’re scuffed and we’re battered
The winter’s been hard
But here looking up at our knees against the blue
Hold tight to each others’ words a bit more than we used to

Here’s a length of one my invisible threads for each of you
Go and wind it round trees and trainlines and don’t let go
It will stretch round the back of the moon that hangs in the garden
If you need it to
I’ve stopped looking for beginnings and endings
Amidst all our messes of tangled up yarn
There’s no rolling us neat and new all back in our packets now
And how I love unravelling into your arms

And through the summer we drew patterns in the sand
Fleeting microcosms of joy in this collapsing fading land
I want to go back to the sea
Summer opens and closes like a shell
I want to go back to the sea
Did you keep a hold of the end of the line for me?
Hold it tight against the swell

If we could be
The ways we can see
Beyond what we’re defaulting to
If we could change before the changes reach us
And the wave takes all we ever want to do
You are the ones I’d choose
To hold and to build with
But here with the feel of our backs against the ground
All we can do is search for broken strands, re-thread the loops that come unwound

[index]

Bright Underwing

2020

Is the day over or is it beginning?
Bright underwing, bright underwing
Among the old stones given back to the moss
And a memory of rain in a distant park
Sending our smudges and chimes to each other
Bright underwing, bright underwing
You give me back parts of myself that I’d lost
Bright underwing and a song in the dark

And how dare we take joy in a low sun brightening feathers
As if ravages and cataclysms might be disowned?
But while we still breathe, and while we rage and while we grieve
We must hold these things close against our bones

The colour of eels paints the sky by the water
Bright underwing, bright underwing
Down in the kelp forest strange currents pervade
And now we know time can’t be taken by force
We are all growing in sparks from each other
Bright underwing, bright underwing
You send me back bits of the world I mislaid
Bright underwing and the scent of the gorse

Round comes the dawn chorus too soon after sleeping
Bright underwing, bright underwing
Then it’s back to the bats in the last evening glow
Now the clock is just songs trailing out of the sky
And oh no we shall not get out of the river
Bright underwing, bright underwing
The fish are insisting we owe them our toes
Bright underwing and a sweep of high cries

[index]

Septemberlight

2019

It crept in, the Septemberlight
Overnight, all visceral rememberlight
All long wet grass and storms
All sparks and apples on the train
But just because the light falls the same way that it did then
Doesn’t mean all those things will happen again
Though all your cells are primed
For another of the same

And these days, these minutes, these moons
I can’t even wish that any of it might be undone
Look what velvet we have woven from the wreckage
In an hour round the sun

It crept in, the Novemberlight
Overnight – do you rememberlight?
All fragile on the bridge
Between what was and what became
And just because the leaves move once again from sky to feet
Doesn’t mean we too must play on repeat
What if time has bends
And refraction amends
Expectations of the same?

[index]