Always Leave Your Light On

When I was younger…much younger than today, I ran. I ran from the darkness that shouted from the emptiness I felt inside. The hiding and pretending and disintegrating into poetry, books, music and alike: seemed the only way to cope with a father shackled in fear of his anger and a mother displaced by her own blame. If it were not for art I would not be. I dare so…there are many more like me. Be them southern, hetero, short, tall or plaid and polka dotted. The artists who struggle do so from a past that has given them their joy for difference. Be it song, dance, scripture or sculpture.   We are all the same in this world. For no matter how different we are we are common in our struggles to be free.

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung

Would you hear my voice come through the music?

Would you hold it near, as it were your own?

It’s a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken

Perhaps they’re better left unsung

I don’t know, don’t really care

Let there be songs to fill the air

-Ripple

-Jerry Garcia

The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again
I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But everything changes
And my friends seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
-Heart of the Matter
-Don Henley

It’s dark in here I feel so alone

But there’s a light somebody just turned on

It opens my eyes and it lets me see

And once again it amazes me

How your love stays with me

When shadows fall and everybody leaves

Well I’m not alone I know I’ll never be

Your love stays with me

When cold rains fall against my skin

It chills my body oh but not the soul within

Cause I got a fire burnin’ so bright

It keeps me warm through the longest night

Oh how your love stays with me…

-Your Love Stays with Me

-Shelby Lynne

There’s little white lights every where

Your childhood dog in dads old chair

And more memory’s than then my heart can hold

Leave us singing fields of gold

There’s neighbors, thieves and long lost lovers

Villains, poets, kings and mothers

Up here we forgive each other

For every soul that’s down there waiting

Holding on still hesitating

We say a prayer of levitating

You can look back on your life and lot

It can’t matter what your not

By the time your here were all we’ve got

In my heaven

-In My Heaven

-Mary Chapin Carpenter

A true Artist Always Leaves their Light On

-Me