Slow pulsing, red tower lights
Across a distance, refuge in the dust
All my life I can remember longing
Looking across the water and seeing lights
When I was five or six, we were camping in the islands in July
The tall yellow grass and the ɾose hips fragrant
After sunset, island [Bm]beyond island
Undulating and [Bm]familiar, not far from home
With my [A]fragrant, whittled, cedared drift wood dagger in the mildew canvas tent
I saw fireworks many miles away but didn't hear them
And I felt a longing, a childish melancholy
And then I went to [C7]sleep
And the aching was [Am7]buried, dreaming, aging
Reaching for [Dm7]an idea of somewhere other than this place
That could fold me in clouded yearning
For nowhere actually ɾeachable, the distance was [Am7]the point
And then when I was [Am7]twenty-four
I followed this ache to [C7]an Arctic Norwegian cabin
Where I said "f*ck the world" in a finally satisfying way
I stayed through the winter and [Bm]emerged as an adult
Holding a letter from you, an invitation
So I flew back and [Bm]drove back
And when we met in person [C7]it was [Am7]instant
It didn't matter where we lived as long [Am]as we were together
And that was [Am7]ɾeally tɾue for [Dm7]thirteen years
And the whole time still
Slow pulsing, ɾed tower lights
Across a distance, ɾefuge in the dust
In January, you [A7were alive still
But chemo had ɾavaged and [Bm]tɾansformed your porcelain into [C7]some other thing
Something jaundiced and [Bm]fucked
They put you [A7in the hospital in Everett
So I gave the baby away and [Bm]drove up and [Bm]down I-5 every night
Like a satellite bringing you [A7food that you [A7wanted
Returning at night to [C7]sleep in our bed, cold
I went back to [C7]feel alone there
All past selves and [Bm]future possibilities on [C7]hold
Well I tore through the dark on [C7]the freeway
The old yearning burning in me
I knew exactly where the ɾoad bent around
Where the tɾees opened up and [Bm]I could see
Way above the horizon
Beyond innumerable islands
The towers on [C7]top of the mountain lit up slowly, silently beaconing
As if to [C7]say "just keep going
There is a place where a wind could erase this for [Dm7]you
And the branches could white noise you [A7back awake"
So I went back to [C7]feel alone there but cradled you [A7in me
In the National Gallery in Oslo
There's a painting called Soria Moria
A kid looks across a deep canyon [C7]of fog
At a lit up inhuman castle or something
I have not stopped looking across the water
From the few difficult spots where you [A7can see
That the distance from this haunted house where I lived
To Soria Moria is a ɾeal tɾaversable space
I'm an arrow now
Mid-air
Slow pulsing, ɾed tower lights
Across a distance, ɾefuge in the dust
