Spirit House from Cascadia by Noe Venable

I lived in a spirit house
of blood and clay designed
and though I was a guest within
I lived like it was mine

At times I felt its poverty
and I thought that poverty mine
but when I needed shelter
into that house I would climb

For the rain it poured like music
while the lowly hearth did roar
and I sang inside my spirit house
as the wild wind raved at the door

The night I left the spirit house
I didn’t say goodbye
just heard the plainchant of an owl cry
and then I went outside

Where the night was strangely sonorous
and more fragrant than before
and I reached out for my spirit house
but those walls were there no more

And when I found it was a dream
I knelt down on the floor
and thanked those beams, so long-strong and so unseen
and gently shut the door

Bless this house
doorway hung with oranges and cloves
altars of cinnamon and rose
it’s granted you to live a while and know

Bless this house
morning when another day’s begun
find me on the hillsides where I run
gathering the white rays of the sun

• Ecto
• Folk
• Progressive
• chamber folk
• San Francisco