Casting Shadows from Briarfinch by Briarfinch

There’s a pocket in the back of my mind and I fill it up with things to be felt
Now my head’s an arrogant whirl of all the things I haven’t reasoned out just yet
Pull one out to show you from time to time and I speculate it’s notches and its hilt
And slip my hand into my pocket like my tongue would map the gaps between my teeth

And it’s promising but not useful
Like a grudge that you’re determined to hold
Or a shadow in a cave with an audience to sate
Stray but a little and you’ll get cold

Carry that grudge with me to church on Sunday morn where I sit enraptured by the force of words
That I grew up without, and only now I know to whisper to myself
For consecration I would wear a crown of thorns, and lay it down again to hear of David’s chord
For if only unto me some pagan god would bestow a simple nod

But that’s not what I meant, what I meant at all
That’s not it at all
Am I just a pair of arms flung up high in alarm
At the forms I see moving ‘gainst the wall

Was I harder to raise than the saving of a face
Was it more in the challenge of keeping me off balance
When I’m up against the wall, fill anybody fall
For me

I feel practical but not grateful
To a god that I’m determined to crave
And I’ll dance around the light, with your back to my right
Casting shadows in a cave

So I’m sorry my friend but if you see me again
I’ll be casting shadows in a cave

• Acoustic
• bluegrass
• newgrass
• progressive bluegrass
• Olympia