Ben Arthur's "Bone and Heart"

Singer-songwriter and novelist Ben Arthur, who recently finished the European leg of his tour for If You Look for My Heart, an interrelated concept album and novel, wrote and recorded a song inspired by Frank Bures's article "The Secret Lives of Stories: Rewriting Our Personal Narratives,” which appears in the January/February 2013 issue. The lyrics, Arthur says, are either direct quotations or lines inspired by the work of Paul Gruchow, the late poet who's words of advice factor heavily in Bures's essay.

Grinding underfoot
The music of snow
Drifts at the fenceline
A fat gauzy glow
The words stung
Like they were meant to sting

Broken bones and broken hearts don’t heal the same
The reverberations don’t die away

Listening to the surfacing sound
of the wilderness
It knits together
Loneliness
The ravages of a hard winter

Broken bones and broken hearts don’t heal the same
The reverberations don’t die away