1. |
Common Ground
06:22
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Copper light on the brick wall
Winters grip loosened from the air
And we do as we've always done
Plant out the seeds to last the year
Curbside colours, front garden wonders
Land sprawling wide or windowsill climbers
Taking back what we can
Of our common
Our Common ground
Fields yielding row after row of the same
Bees dying with only the grain
Hedgerow sanctuary smited by hands of a god
Roused by money and wastelands
Farmers dead in their droves
Brought to the end by the patents and famines
Born of the same bitter crop
The hoarding of wealth from the common ground
We are not enemies you and I
What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys
It's from the earth that we know how to rise
We are not enemies you and I
What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys
It's from the earth that we know how to rise
For our common ground
Yes we depend on the trees and the soil
The salt and the temperature of the ocean
It's in all of our interests to grow and protect
The common ground
But we are pushed further and further away
From what could centre and humble our days
Autonomous connection, new life to old ways
On the common ground
We are not enemies you and I
What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys
It's from the earth that we know how to rise
We are not enemies you and I
What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys
It's from the earth that we know how to rise
For our common ground
Forced into flats with no green grass for miles
Development all around
Forced into cities to live since industry
Abandoned the town
Forced from the fields and into the buildings
Meaningless work claims the days
Families forced into monoculture
But they can't eat when the crops all fail
We are not enemies you and I
What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys
It's from the earth that we know how to rise
We are not enemies you and I
What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys
It's from the earth that we know how to rise
For our common ground
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2. |
Tangleha
04:22
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The house it looks out over the sea
Stone and mortar crumbled
Burdock where the family would have been
And we stand amidst it humbled
The wave it took the houses of the town
All on the peninsula
It crushed and it roared and it dragged them down
Now all that's left is the kelp, the birds
The town I've known since the day I was born
Was a place of seafarers
But with each year comes a mighty storm
It tears through the defenses
I heard the news the other day
It told of a future dismal
The streets, the meadows the creatures and their ways
Will soon be in the channel
The people wade through the rivers that run
In and out of their villages
No place to stay and loved ones gone
It's a long and treacherous road ahead
As the waters rage all across the world
The tide marks the movements
Of those that bear the consequence
Of damage that wasn't their doing
The house it looks out over the sea
Stone and mortar crumbled
Burdock where the family would have been
And we stand amidst it humbled
The wave it took the houses of the town
All on the peninsula
It crushed and it roared and it dragged them down
Now all that's left is the kelp, the birds
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3. |
Rivers Meet
05:32
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This ground stretches beneath our feet
Roots vines capillaries
Connected across fertile lands
Across darkened waters
Our breath filling and collapsing the space
Between these bodies
Ground so ancient yet we are so new
Our journeys, scatterings of salt upon hills, on seas
We write our lives in ink, in soil
Old land scripture, old land scripture
And as the rivers meet, and weave, and leave again
So do we
Vines of deep green caressing the bark
Of the same tall tree
And as the rivers meet and weave and leave again
So do we
Vines of deep green caressing the bark
Of the same tall tree
I wonder if you saw the moon tonight
It's not yet full yet it flung its gaze
Across rooftops, wet, as if it was
It's always the same night sky we sleep beneath
The same migrating winds that travel through our hair
Stars that dance their last defeated dance
And we look up from whatever
Keeps us down here
And as the rivers meet, and weave, and leave again
So do we
Vines of deep green caressing the bark
Of the same tall tree
And as the rivers meet and weave and leave again
So do we
Vines of deep green caressing the bark
Of the same tall tree
When you sleep may your body nurture you
Reminded of the loves that burn across these lands for you
So that you may find ease in your days
Building strength for winter
Wherever you may lay
Wherever you may lay
You may lay down your wandering bones
And as the rivers meet, and weave, and leave again
So do we
Vines of deep green caressing the bark
Of the same tall tree
And as the rivers meet and weave and leave again
So do we
Vines of deep green caressing the bark
Of the same tall tree
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4. |
Gripping the wheel
06:01
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We're living in these times
Where the signs are plastered on the signs
Fermenting misery submerged within the brine
Is it in our minds
Sun shines, goes up, comes down like expected
But on the ground it is hectic
The balance is wrecked as has been for millennia
It's what the old ones have been telling you
They felt the earth shudder in a fever
As it was carved out and plundered
Just so some could get ahead
So we respond to these letters on our doorstep
Masks up, hands washed, stockpile, store dread
But on the road leading out of town the ground's dead
Churned up and developed
Now where does the fox lay its little head
Is it lost on our intuition
Or is it the mangled green rot of this condition
How can we listen
No ear to the earth, eyes to the sky
Heart to the wild
It's just a place of imagination
Too far out of reach for our aching hands
Maybe a burden on our budding plans
What was there before the tar sands
And plantations
Do we remember the soul of our lands
They can barely leave the food on the shelves
Consider the hand to mouth of someone else
Let alone think about our kin of the soil or the trees or the ice shelf
Fear is the mallet that splits the wood
Desperation's the wedge
Capitalism, the fatal blow to our heads our hearts
Scrambling round on hands and knees
Collecting shards of glass
Thrown as an offering, a pittance
A ridicule of bread and puppetry
The bank is the god, it is the carrot
On the stick of misery
Lessons in separation
The haves the have not
The responsibly distant
The suicidal can not
First time thinkers with a judgement raining down
Like thunder
Strike the people when it's the profit that tears us all asunder
We've never seen anything like this before
Or have we
It's in the water, in the air,
Thick with tension, muggy
Under every blank stare
Turned over in the milling of days
Catastrophe churns the waking hours
Of so many already
But today it's not just the poor wringing hands
And so there's plans and handouts
And rising welfare standards
It goes to show it's all a fix
Before now after
There's no trust in a time like this
Immediacy's an addiction
Woven into our minds by isolation
Dependent on the truck leaving the depot
Set to the clock, and the traffic and the coming of snow
But disaster knows no borders
We lack the immunity of order
And not order like the state
Or the heavies banging down our doors
But the kind that restores and supports us
The kind we'd get if we were held by our elders
Held by the fire or by example
Someone to say
Time is a rippling of everything that ever was and ever will be
It doesn't get left behind
And we'd find out how old we really are
We're living in these binds
Where the signs are peeling off the signs
And there's planning permission until the end of time
Buckle up, hold tight, both hands gripping the wheel
But the car's driving on AI
So we just let it drive
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5. |
Heavy Eyes
05:54
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I'm tired and I want to sleep
For longer than the nights grant me
I'm tired and I want to sleep
For longer than the days sneak up upon me
Heavy eyes
Heavy bones
Heavy eyes
Heavy bones
I imagine my body as a boat
In a wind that whips and tosses me to the deep
I imagine my body as a boat
In a storm that rips the sails
And steals the wood from under my feet
Heavy eyes
Heavy bones
Heavy eyes
Heavy bones
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6. |
Bark of the Pine
06:14
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You grant me your fingers
Bones of your body
As gifts from the rocks of the earth
Seabed as the maker
The crafter the shaper
Turned light into salt
Into shoes on my hearth
We're older than we can ever know
The last time I cried with you
I couldn't conceive of time with you
But time is a trick of the gods
They maneuver through the
Broken and battered debris that is scattered
And laugh at the idea that time might be lost
We're older than we could ever know
These fears that are founded in human convention
The warp of the mind like the bark of the pine
Digging in heels as the current does what you need it to the most
But will you let it
Cause the riverbank erodes
It wasn't meant to last forever
Let the water take you, let the water take you
As it has always done
Let the water take you, let the water take you
As it has always done
Fluctuations between acceptance of loss
And a terror that pinches my nerves
Pretending in my head
I'm at where I'm at and that's it
I've made my learning curve
But I'd be lying to myself
If I Imagined it all to be true
These fears that are founded in human convention
The warp of the mind like the bark of the pine
Digging in heels as the current does what you need it to the most
But will you let it
Cause the riverbank erodes
It wasn't meant to last forever
Let the water take you, let the water take you
As it has always done
Let the water take you, let the water take you
As it has always done
We sit at this table
And the sky it releases its' bitter cold onto the world
Clocks stop and I relax into
The folds of the evening
Your heater your heart and its' glow
And I know there is no knowing
I hold grief in the back of my mind
And I wish I could see it like you do
But it's going to take me some time
These fears that are founded in human convention
The warp of the mind like the bark of the pine
Digging in heels as the current does what you need it to the most
But will you let it
Cause the riverbank erodes
It wasn't meant to last forever
Let the water take you, let the water take you
As it has always done
Let the water take you, let the water take you
As it has always done
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7. |
Silence
03:31
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The silence held like a sharp drawing of breath
The very fabric of existence frozen
In half a minute of gripping uncertainty
Painful the awareness of rarity
Ears pricked as a hares' to detect a betrayal
A whisper that might slice through the
Vast nothingness, vast fullness, vast fullness
No movement , no need for it
Only waiting
I breathe in, I breathe out
The chill is piercing
And the silence awakens my senses once more
I thought I'd lost this moment
I thought I was too late
I don't remember time like this ever
I don't remember silence ever
And then the car comes
It's fierce engine roars in the distance
And then the people down the end of the road
They are laughing
But I'm not laughing with them
Broken bodies fill the air
Forgotten times of stillness
At the bottom of this hill
Where I grew up but never heard a silence
And we'll go on, never hearing silence anymore
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8. |
We the Witches
06:08
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Your body will not be your own
A shell of flesh a winter harbour
Their boats are left with you to rust
To rot away
Your hands are tied to the fences stuck between moons
You twist and turn but you can't see over your shoulder
The night comes in fast and you don't know if you'll last
To see the morning
And the suns' gesture of forgiveness
Cause you know the sun is full of forgiveness
And this cradle within you was never meant for them
And their pious little minds
That were never loved enough
What a nest you could have made
If it was yours to find the branches for
But it's not yours as long as it's theirs
We bind our scents to the skin of each other
Frost can only become water with the heat of our breath
So we breathe and we breathe
And we give and receive
Like the mothers and aunts and friends that died
Doing their best
What a fear it was to see the torches in the children's eyes
Now what a sorrow to bear a child out of fear
And what of the person that you were and are
And might eventually become
Are you still here
If only seconds could be swept up in the dust
Then we would sweep, we would clean it all up
And this cradle within you was never meant for them
And their pious little minds
That were never loved enough
What a nest you could have made
If it was yours to find the branches for
But it's not yours as long as it's theirs
And if my hands can give anything
Let it be a ball of light to bring
Some clarity to those pathways in the dark
And if my loved ones can do anything
It's the power that they hold within
That weaves these herbs and strength
Around the bark
These old stories are our grounding
It's within this knowledge is where we are found
Resting our bones among the pages thick with age
Under the blankets of their gardens
Of the hedges the woods and the mountains
We are students in survival everyday
For the ones who died in quiet
For the sake of an unborn life
For the ones who took a chance
With shaking hands
We must keep on with our fingers
In the spirit of every witch that
Has followed their sense and their knowing
Even in the face of death
What if we lose this, if we forget it
What chances to grasp at last threads that
Are holding us together like a patchwork quilt
If there is nothing but a book and a wondering
A story that in dark times can bring
Some light then let's use these hands like water
Healing
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Rootweave Brighton And Hove, UK
"Rootweave weaves together folk, punk and spoken word, and traverses stormy seas of grief, curiosity, community, ancestry, transformation and bearing witness to the uncertain times we find ourselves in. With their powerful voice and heart, listening to Rootweave feels like the warmth, the rest, and the reflections of coming home to ourselves in these troubled times." ... more
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