Lost River/Old River is Matthew Hovey Kemp.
These songs came into being between 2009 & 2014.
Matthew wrote, performed, recorded & produced them
all inside various homes while watching things move.

Featuring
Wilson Kemp - drums - 02, 03, 04, 10
Eric Loftis - drums - 05, 07, 08
Maureen Halverson - vocals - 02, 03, 04, 10
John Gnorski - lap & pedal steel - 02, 06, 07
Alicia Kate Halverson - vocals - 07
John Walsh - vocals - 04

matthew@bookofarrows.com

Thank you for listening.

CEDAR SHAKES

if I am allowed to sit and breathe
on the beach alone looking out at the sea
will I find the stillness I need?
or only the way things are moving in me

(if I am) found by the fury of love in the morning,
will I know it at night?
(on the beach) feeling a moment becoming a memory,
will I remember it then?
(will I find) a voice in the fog of a future that I cannot see,
calling to me?
(or only) a noise in the distance, a smudge on the mirror of time
with love looking back

WATCHING THE TREES MOVE

I can see the distance in the air
it bends like an apparition, it shakes and it moves
there in between us at the end of the day
I can see the air in the light

the low sun is shining through the pines behind your house
it catches you full in the face and you look away
and I'm happy to be alive
we sit there without saying anything
but we both know that the sun is gonna set
and I know that we may be through
but it feels good to just sit with you
watching the trees move

UNTENDED

the street is blue
the morning's a deep, dark gray
the street lamp is garish through the October rain
there's hills all around us trying to hide the day
and I think I'll let them

all of the things that I wanted to show the world
are wrapped in a cover and hidden beneath my floor
and there they will crumble and turn back to cluttered thought
untended it all goes the same way

but after all I am left walking through heavy grass
hoping and waiting for the storms to pass
and I feel the fragments of thinking and I want to know
if left untended will they become the whole?

COLD HANDS

I have cold hands
yellow and red, shaking

follow slowly
let my feet fall steadily

make time to slow down
think of the things that we have

are you listening?
I don't know how to do this

WHEN THE WHIRLWIND WAS

when the whirlwind was born between my bones
my lungs were breathing waves
my heart was pounding stone
my hand a daydream's grave and hesitation's home

a tree who's casting its roots around to find her
I am left wondering if my blood will still stir
once the Westerlies have prevailed inside of me
I will throw away all of the maps that I have made

as the whirlwind was hauling through my heart
I felt my trembling pulse
I felt my ribcage part
I saw the splitting bones
and knew you'd leave a scar

DUET

I FIX NOTHING, I LET IT GO

I watched the wind
coming up my street
coming up strong

the cold came too
in the cloud of a short breath
it took me from you

and death is a fitting end
to the messes we make
while relying on memory

time starts and slows
and moves like a friend
who we can't ever really know

I was born in the wintertime
nestled real low in the hills of Colorado
and when I can I will return and find myself a home

MISSING MOUNTAINS

I was running
I was running with the wolves
and I knew I was cold
but I didn't know how cold
and I knew I was fast
but I wasn't fast enough

while I was running
I learned something new
that if you run long enough
the earth begins to move
and your thoughts start to slow
and the wolves all fall away

THE WAY THINGS MOVE

GHOST IN THE SUNLIGHT

the sunlight falls like fog
we watch it shift and shake
you stand and it pools at your feet
I'm having a hard time seeing you

you laugh and glimmer and gleam
you burn and break up
a ghost in the sunlight

the canyon walls are hollow
and your dress is a prism in the billow and brume
the sandstone shivers and shines
like the mirror you hung on our wall

you step off of the earth and into the water
and your world begins to move
like a dog's breath or a calm sea
the waves too gentle to resist
too gentle to resist