Steemit Open Mic Week 71 - Original Song, "First Sign of Rain"

I hope everybody is having a good break after all the crypto chaos and the SEC meeting. Keep hodling, Steemians!

This week I'm celebrating my first 30 days on Steemit, and I'm excited to bring another original song to the Open Mic hootenanny. This summer I was accepted to an artist residency called the Sedona Summer Colony. It's gorgeous in Sedona, AZ, but I spent most of my time at the colony sitting at the piano or wrapped around my guitar writing songs inspired by the desert and the storms that thunder across Northern Arizona during their monsoon season in July. I wrote this one on a piano in the lobby of a library building where we threw the big double doors open so we could see, hear, feel the storm building outside. This song also reads like a litany of superstitions and spellcraft, inspired by the fact that Sedona is home to a community in the throes of magical thinking complete with all of the crystal shops, occult bookstores and New Age centers that that culture evokes.

Shut the shade and lock the door
Don't spill salt on the kitchen floor
Sign your sign, and say your spell
See the sun be blown to hell
Grab your babe, hold on tight
Summon all your mortal might
Get your gate in lock and chain
Before the first sign of rain

Whisper all your secret words
Speak them softly so they're heard
Hear the wind, but don't look up
Empty out your wishing cup
Dress in autumn red and brown
Throw away your springtime crown
Meet the raven on the lane
Before the first sign of rain

Write down your most precious prayer
Tie it in your tangled hair
Pick a stick, draw a card
The fool is dancing in the yard
Stare into a polished stone
Burn your candle, roll your bones
Meet the level, part the plane
Before the first sign of rain

Enjoy the song!