Creek Swells

When it hasn’t rained for a while, a creek will get lower, and the water rushing over its rocks will become more turbulent.  However, when the skies have rained, and the creek has swelled, it assumes a steady flow.  The specific creek referenced isn’t quite a creek; it’s the Potomac River, which is only about a fifteen minute walk away through the woods behind the house where I grew up.  Despite the depressing amount of pollution, I always loved that river.  The cool air rising off it seemed to cut through the oppressive mugginess that saturated every summer day in Northern Virginia.  But we’re not in Northern Virginia right now; we’re in the Snaggleberry Forest.  It’s early in the afternoon, shortly after a cool morning’s rain, and the sun’s mottled light is reflecting off all the wet grass and leaves.  The air is growing dense with mist rising off the forest floor, and the chittering bugs scatter with your every footfall.

Finches

Finches is sentimentally analogous to Creek Swells in many ways because the protagonist is still in the same place.  While Creek Swells represents the ground foliage, rocks, streams, and such, Finches shows the protagonist the trees.  Now that the sun is out, things are really coming back to life.  The trees are swaying, leaves rustle and big drops of water fall at your feet and on your hat.  And of course, finches, wrens, and even crows are bustling overhead, sweeping over great clearings in the trees.

Hello Moon

The sun is setting and the air is cool, but not any less humid.  The sunset rests out of sight behind hills of trees, and the thick blanket of clouds overhead is thinly orange-tinted.  You’ve come to rest somewhere nice.  The crickets and the cicadas are starting to wake up, now that it’s really starting to get dark.  Highlighted by a ring of scattered light, you spot your old friend, the moon.  In a moment, the air has cooled, the chatter of all the forest’s creatures has faded into an unnoticeable din, and you’ve fallen into a deep sleep.

The Memory Seller

A yellow glow approaches you from the riverside.  No larger than a dinner plate and no brighter than a firefly.  A figure shrouded in a blue robe carries a staff with a hanging lantern.  Rather than fear, you sense intrigue in his presence, and you eagerly await his arrival.  He’s no more than 10 feet from where you lie when he takes off his hood.  He has the head of a barn owl, and he stares into you with palpable wisdom, puncturing reality before your eyes.  Like a warm tidal wave, you’re swept into a cosmic theater as The Memory Seller reflects to you every formative moment in your life.  Right up until this very moment.  He locks eyes with you briefly before you’re gently swept back to where you were before.  A great pair of wings rush overhead, and the Memory Seller is gone.

Duen_des

I’d like to preface this by saying that I don’t know what duendes you’ve been speaking with, but those of the Snaggleberry Forest mean no harm.  Lit by the soft glow of the moon, a handful of miniature people, each no more than a foot tall, emerge from the roots of a sprawling willow tree.  They look like little more than boots and hands protruding from beneath green cloaks and pointed caps.  Some carry strange little instruments, which bump and rustle as they situate themselves on rocks and roots surrounding a wide carpet of moss.  For what feels like mere minutes, they play their tune, dance.  But before you know, the sun’s halo is peeking over the trees.

Our Champion’s Praise

On the side of a mountain overlooking a holler, and the village that sits in it, a knight adorned in bronze armor stumbles, dragging a filthy sack containing the head of a dragon.  Blood drips from his helmet and every seam in his armor, and runs into his boots.  His every labored breath can be heard reverberating through his helmet.

Waking Beside a Frosted Window

In an instant, you awaken in a dark room, in your own bed.  Everything you’ve ever known sieves away, and you’re left with nothing but a distant dream of the duendes, the memory seller, and all within the Snaggleberry Forest.  It’s quite cold outside.  The blue glow of the misty sky barely peeks from behind your curtains, and chilly drafts leak through your window.  Your time in the Snaggleberry Forest was singular, and it will never be the same again.

Thanks for listening and reading :)

Edit: 

It's been several months now since I released the Snaggleberry Forest, and I look back at it quite fondly.  I remember the day I released it was the day I drove back home after an internship at Caterpillar in Illinois.  I spent most of that drive thinking about the friends I'd made.  And how there was a strong chance that I'd never see them again.  I feel lucky to say that I look back on that summer through rose-tinted glass.

For that reason, the Snaggleberry Forest has become inextricably intwined with my experiences there, and with those great people.  The Snaggleberry Forest came from place close to the heart, and it will stay there forever.  It's an album that I wrote about home.  And home is made of good people.  I don't think I'll ever have the ability to recreate, or really expound upon the Snaggleberry Forest because it's an experience that has came and went.  And I knew that going in; that's precisely what Waking Beside a Frosted Window is about.  It's a painful reality I'm still coming to terms with.