This song is unique in that it is the only track on which I play the mountain dulcimer. The instrument belonged to a friend who lent it to me for the sessions. (Soon afterward, he sold the dulcimer in order to buy a deer rifle.) I had owned a dulcimer many years before and had a basic knowledge of how to play. The flute on this track is one that I purchased from a Choctaw maker from Oklahoma. It has a beautiful, clean tone which, in this song, brought to mind the lovely cascading notes of the call of the canyon wren, which Nikki and I always delighted in during our canyon adventures. The title is a play on "Renaissance."

"Escalante"

This is probably my favorite song from "Ruin Sky." At the time I was recording this album, I had become enchanted with the canyons of the Escalante River in Utah, and this song was my musical homage to that place. I recorded the rhythm guitar track first and then added a second guitar line as a bass substitute. Next came the flute part which consisted of both backing and lead sections. I found a keyboard sound I liked to add texture and depth, and then decided to try a solo on acoustic guitar. Engineer, Blair Ashby, did an great job of recording my old Yamaha steel-string and we were really pleased with the result. My producer, Doug Goodwin, said it reminded him of the acoustic solos played by Peter White on Al Stewart songs. The water sound was carefully chosen from a public-domain sound effects library. The song brings back strong memories of many glorious canyon days.

Fado
(a found poem)
 
 A cry for hope.
 
Tenderness?
Sure, but so little.
 
Just because a swallow dies, spring does not end.
 
The soul gets tired.
 
The fingers take orders from the heart.
 
We leave our bodies when we sing.
 
The alchemy of sound and poem,
it’s inside us from birth.
 
**

Memory?
 
I cannot remember if
there was a candle
on the clothed table
set for one.
 
I do recall the vinho verde
chilling in a teakwood bucket,
poured quietly between 
sets of fado, smoldering,
mournful--
 
tearful singer, wet cheeks lit
by dying candlelight.
 
I remember.

 
**
 
Into the Vapor and Din
 
Listening to Amalia with windows
wide open,
saudade in winter
evening gloom.
 
My new guitarra portuguesa
yearns for me to learn, to teach
old fingers new licks, and I dream
 
I am wandering calcadas in Lisboa
inventing my own heteronyms, concocting
poems with vastly different pens.
 
I greet Fernando Pessoa,
“Bom dia, Senhor. I saw you sitting
outside A Brasileira today but
you were not actually there
nor anywhere else.”
 
“That is how I prefer it,”
he replied without inflection
then vanished precisely
into the vapor and din.
 
I awaken to Amalia singing
life’s last song,
to gray-soaked murk and
swirling fog.
 
The music pours through
my confused heart.
 
My weeping eyes listen
to the distant wild
ocean wind.


(c) Eric Walter 2022

This song is played on a double flute (drone flute) made by Odell Borg.
The waterfalls seen in the video are located in Skamania County, Washington, USA.
Dedicated to my beautiful Nikki.

So named by painter Georgia O'Keeffe, the "white place" (La Plaza Blanca) is a geologically unique and stunningly picturesque area near the Rio Chama in northern New Mexico (USA). It was a favored painting location for O'Keeffe and is visible from her house in Abiquiu Pueblo. Nikki and I spent a beautiful morning there during our visit to New Mexico in November of 2019. Nikki had a vigor that had been absent since her diagnosis, and it seemed as if the chemotherapy through which she had been suffering was perhaps working. Little did either of us imagine that she had only ten weeks to live. This was the last hike we took together.

This song was the first track recorded during the "She Who Watches" sessions in December of 2020. It features guitar, Native American flute, mandolin, and accordion.

La Plaza Blanca
 
 
You could see it from
her house in Abiquiú
across the Rio Chama
Georgia’s skull-white
landscape muse
owned now by a mosque
that grants us heathens
and pilgrims of Other
respectful access
to this pallid sanctum
of tuneful wind
raven song ringing beyond
chalky hoodoos and
along milky ledges
pastel creek beds
that seem to run
more ways than
one.
 
Then silence
then song again
then wind
then none.
 
With Georgia’s ghost and
the hosts of Muhammed
we track a shadowy past
slipping through fences
of barbwire and bone
pondering strange exhibits
of black stones on this ashen canvas
stretching beyond time.
 
This sun-bleached forever
is quite hard to find
there are no signs
and the address in the local guide
is 1234 Fictitious Lane.