Many of my thoughts lately have been breezy. They come both gently and full force, and don't seem to hang on for long. As a writer, this is frustrating. As a poet it is a slow suicide...somehow, though I keep hope alive! Good friends help, and good music as well. Lucky for me, I've got Shellee for both.

One late night, I received a text from Shellee about a song she had just written, and got up in the dark to listen to her 11 pm rendition of The Trees. I don't know about you, but that's about the time of night when I am drifting through some pretty heavy thoughts, and doing my best to let them fly. Most nights I leave the conscious world with more questions than answers, a process that can sometimes seem like an endless struggle to find the information I feel I need to move on.

"Will you lay down the fight

And will you hold the sky's lights

Where you are tonight?"

This song is freeing. In the asking, it releases a bit of the tension of being human, opening up space for movement, for Spirit, for life, for comfort. It reminds me not to let my own thoughts and questions build up into prison bars...I need to reach out, touch and be touched. I need family and friends and words and God. I hear it all in this song: the late, dark night; the wind rustling through leafy branches; the change of a season; the movement of the Spirit; and the connection of friends.

Thanks, Shellee, for reaching out...wherever you are tonight.

To hear an audio clip of Shellee’s story behind the song and to stream it, visit her website by clicking here.