Hiraeth

Lyrics

[Intro]
(harp — a Celtic figure, mist-laden, ancient)
(cello enters like a valley opening)

[Verse 1]
The Welsh have a word
That the dictionary translates as homesickness
But the dictionary has never stood
On a hillside in Ceredigion
Looking down at a village
It has never visited
And wept

Hiraeth is the longing for a place
That may not exist
Or that exists only in the version
The hippocampus assembled
From a grandmother's description
And a painting seen at nine
And the smell of peat
In a pub
In a city
That was not the city
But was close enough
For the place cells to fire
And file a false address
Under: home

[Chorus]
(building — harp, strings, the ache expanding into a valley)
Hiraeth, hiraeth
The home the hippocampus drew from smoke
Hiraeth, hiraeth
A map to a place that no one spoke
Into existence — it just arrived
Assembled from the spare parts of the longed-for
And the longed-for
Was always more furnished
Than anywhere
I've actually stored my coat

[Verse 2]
(just voice and harp, intimate, confessional)
I have hiraeth for a farmhouse
I have never seen
With a kitchen that smells
Like the sound of a language
I almost speak
Where a woman who might be
An ancestor or a wish
Is setting a table
For a person she expects
Who is me
Who has never arrived
Who is always arriving
Who the place cells
Have been tracking
Through every city
That was not this kitchen
But was shaped enough like longing
To keep the signal alive

[Chorus]
Hiraeth, hiraeth
The home the hippocampus drew from smoke
Hiraeth, hiraeth
A map to a place that no one spoke
Into existence

[Bridge]
(everything drops — just voice and a single sustained harp chord)
The cruelest thing about hiraeth
Is that arrival would kill it

If the farmhouse were real
If the kitchen existed
If the woman set the table
And I walked in

The place cells would update
The false address would correct
And the longing — the beautiful longing —
Would be replaced
By furniture

And the furniture would be fine
And the fine
Would be the death
Of the most beautiful room
I've ever not
Walked into

[Outro]
(harp — the Celtic figure from the intro, but fading into mist)
Hiraeth
(whispered)
I miss it
I've never been there
The missing is the room
(cello — one note, held, a valley closing)
(mist — silence)