Sonya Cotton - It Is So (2011)

This album is dedicated to the life and spirit of my mother, Karen Imparato Cotton.
Track VII is a song I wrote for my friend Eric Bayer who was diagnosed with cancer two months after my mother passed away from the same disease. Eric died four months later; he was 34. My mom and Eric were of a similar heart: they were both exceptionally generous and compassionate. My mom was a lifelong animal advocate. Eric worked to empower marginalized people in San Francisco. The "Black River" referenced in this song is "the black river of loss/whose other side/is salvation" from Mary Oliver's poem "In Blackwater Woods."
The "swarm of bees" that I sing of in Track IX is Emily Ritz, and her band Honeycomb.