What can be said of the woman

The one who can grow the new world

By her touch, the moonflowers blossom

Her song calls the little blue birds

When I think of my mother

The golden sun shines in my eyes

Marigolds and orange blossoms

A love, so bright and alive

She dances with the spirits

On the beach, in the night, in the fog

She believes in magic

In saints and in ghosts and in gods

To the moon, she offers her worries

Her voice guides the golden sun west

In my mother's garden

The orb weaver spins her gold web

Her love is as big as the ocean

Her sorrow, so deep and so wild

She can hear Saint Theresa

Singing at night when she cries

My mother contains every color

She sees points of indigo light

She knows there is something that guides her

Through the storm, through the fog, through the night

We stand upon the yellow beach

I hold my mother's hand

Golden relics begin to surface

Unearthed where the waves hit the sand

At night, we walked on the seashore

Jellyfish luminesced blue-green light

My heart came alive with the colors

Her eyes shined with indigo light

My mother burns orange like the sunrise

But her heart shines a brilliant blue

Her love is as big as the ocean

Her sorrow, so wild and so blue

I believe in magic

In saints and in ghosts and in gods

I close my eyes and see colors

Blue for patience and green for love

We stand where two worlds come together

Where darkness meets with light

On this path, we walk together

Collecting blue pieces of light.

Footprints disappear up here

Where asphalt meets dream land

Like the surface of the moon

Saffron sky and opal sand

I drift off to other worlds

At night when I'm asleep

At night, I get my golden wings

My soul, no cage to keep

I am just a little bird

Still learning how to fly

I shake the dust off from my wings

And look up to the sky

I am just the wildest bird

To fly the saffron sky

I come from where the music's made

From the faintest, farthest light

In the catacombs of dreams

Where footprints disappear

I will sing my golden song

For the sleeping world to hear

Never will I be so far again

From where I'm from

This life, I know, is beautiful

But I will not return

I am just a wild bird

Tumbled by the storm

Gray stone turns to opal white

Where the rock gets worn

Raindrops fall across the sun

And I begin to fly

I think back to where I'm from

The rainbow fills my eyes

I am just a tired bird

Who has never flown so high

Singing on the dusty earth

Waiting for the night to fly.

The radio is playing low

Tom Traubert sings the blues

The wind has swept the sand away

Indian summer raised the ruins

Whatever you do, my darling, my dear

Always try to keep one foot here

How easily you can drift away

When the wind is at your back

These summer days, they stick to me

Sailor's songs drift on the sea

What's been covered for so long

Can feel the sun again

The dog days, they are setting in

And I'm so far away from land

I keep falling in my dreams

Through an opening in the sand

An apparition of the Virgin Mary

Appeared on the beach in the year 1930

Lightning struck rock, and the sand was formed

The sea birds flew off on a late summer storm

Thousands have sailed across the sea

I encounter them at night in my dreams

In the moonlight, we waltz across the beach

Matilda and Mary, the night watchmen flame-keeps

Our lady of light stands here on the shore

Holding a light for all dreamers who fall

Mother of our joys, mother of our sorrows

Guide me through the storm.

As she falls asleep, the city sings

The night descends and lets me in

I can feel her breathing in

The heartbeat in her chest

She lifts me up above my body

I slip into the sea

There is no separation here

One breath holds eternity

My body mixes with the night

Tonight the sky's cracked open wide

There's nothing that exists inside

Except what's passing through

Reaching for the open night

Where I can't see the other side

Where my city meets the sea

The world has turned to blue

Her broken heart, it lets me in

I hear it in the way she sings

Never could I lie to her

She's always seen right through

Lonely creatures haunt the night

Lives pass by in window light

There's nothing that exists outside

Everything shines through

She's my city by the sea

When it's dark she sings to me

Through my broken heart she sees

Where everything gets through.

Sometimes I find a small, lost bird

Who does not need her wings

She has that look inside her eyes

As if carried off by the wind

When at first I see her

I imagine she is hurt

When suddenly, sky turned to glass

And away from the sun, she was dropped

But the little bird, she is not lost

She finds herself there whole

She simply has nothing to hold

And nothing to let go

When she looks so far away

Her spirit, it is wandering

Gleaming in her starry eyes

New galaxies are forming

At night, I hear the faintest cry

I find her in the morning

Sometimes a bird is overcome

By what her heart is holding

I too am a little bird

Carried off by the wind

I do not mind the being lost

If that is what this is

She does not come so often now

Her heart and my heart know

To the wind, you can't hold on

And so you must let go.

No one ever asked me

About my father and the war

I heard them call it Vietnam

I saw his shrapnel scar

I watched him smoke his cigarettes

And read his history books

I watched him get pulled back each time

I entered the room

He left from San Francisco

Like my grandfather before

To cross the wild Pacific

To a stranger's foreign shore

"Monday, Monday" played that winter

On the radio

When springtime came in Tay Ninh

It was the bloodiest month of the war

The sky was lit on fire

In that place called Vietnam

And in the screaming jungle

Rolling hell raged on and on

I wished that I had hands to hold

The things he carried back

I wished my love could mend his wounds

And bring the pieces back

He said he wonders who he is

And just how many are there

His white hair grows down past his shoulders

An old man looks back in the mirror

On a summer day, we paddled across

The lake at Root Beer Falls

Sheep's laurel bloomed in Batsto Village

White sand soaked up the red water

The water was a liminal place

A place we could go in between

Cuckoos called from the chestnut oaks

Watersnakes warmed themselves on dry leaves

It took us half the day

To paddle out and back

Nothing else existed

Outside those hours on the raft

Soft clouds looked on from above

Heaven and hell, under just one sun

He need not wonder who he was

And in those moments, he was home

When Aztec soldiers went to war

They took a different name

Should they live, should they return

They would put it down again

He thinks about it often

As if no time has passed him

Some wounds are just too deep to heal

And no one can imagine

When the sky went up in fire

And the palm trees turned to black

When the mortar rounds pounded in his chest

And rolling hell came racing back

He flew back over the wild Pacific

Like my grandfather before

Touching ground in San Francisco

On a stranger's foreign shore

Someone once described war

As a weight that you can't carry back

As a still moment deep in the jungle

When a bear and a tiger cross paths

In a different world than ours

Under a different sun

We'd understand what we asked of them

We'd understand what war is

Soft clouds looked on from above

Heaven and hell, under just one sun

He need not wonder who he was

And in those moments, he was home.

Sorrow clips the wild bird's wings
And takes away her will to sing
You must make your own light here
Don't ever let them take it, dear

My darling, you are a powerful creature
Your black wings catch the light
You carry in your blood the ancient songs
The future is yours to write

My dear, you are a beautiful creature
I love to hear you sing
Guard your vision, hold it tight
Wild things exist on the wind

Some say a comet will block out the sun
Some predict a new ice age will come
Fear clips the wings of the wildest creature
And tames her from the sky

They will try to shoot you down
Arrows piercing through the clouds
It hurts their pride most bitterly
To imagine you are free

My friend, you come from far away
The place where every dream is made
Feel the quiver in your lungs
As you take another breath

Hope can rise up on the wind
It always comes from little things
In your blood, the ancient songs
Grant your heart its sight

Keep singing and news worlds will form
Of all birds, you're the rarest one
Without you, they don't have a song
Just empty arrows in the ground

You were born to catch the sky
From little hopes, the flowers rise
Of all birds, you're the rarest here
Don't ever let them tame you, dear.

The old land is forgotten

There is no rightful king

All along the edges

The kingdom's caving in

Hollowed out like honeycomb

Rotten at the core

Where once the royal honey ran

Now moves the aphid horde

The waves are coming over

The gray stone, crashing down

The brave ones fight the ocean

The bravest of them drown

Underneath the soil

The roots are undermined

The fruit is turning bitter

Salt water wilts the vine

Those who sow the narrow scope

Speak now of the fall

A dreadful thing that can't be named

Moves beyond the walls

It crawled out of the water

When no one was awake

The dream felt like an avalanche

The very earth did quake

What once was known as history

Is now described as myth

When the unrelenting rain, it came

The very ground did shift

Now the land falls silent

There are whispers of defeat

No one sees beyond the walls

They stand even in dreams

What started as a whisper

Became a battlecry

Deep inside the hearts of men

Fear is stoked like fire

They say there's nothing out there

Past what the eyes can see

Yet here inside the city walls

I've glimpsed eternity

Unfolding like the hay fern grows

And reaching toward the sun

The snake will shed her wornout skin

To feel herself reborn

They say that doom awaits us

Beyond the gray stone walls

That madness grows from flesh and bone

And we are never far

Those who sow the narrow scope

Speak now of the end

The wall has grown so very tall

That nothing can get in

It's been so long since I have felt

The sunburn on my skin

Since getting stranded in a storm

The lightning, and the wind

I come from where the walls are tall

And when the earth does shift

Everything comes crashing down

And through it, you must dig

So many times the earth's come down

And laid its weight on me

So many times I've lost my life

To drowning in the sea

But I have not forgotten

About the land before

I dream of it on stormy nights

When the waves are breaking tall

All the walls come crashing down

And everything gets in

I look up and the storm has passed

I see the sun again.

My feet, they are betraying me

I've fallen where I stand

Of my words, I've no command

I have no expectations

Only hopes and dreams I follow

The days are drawing to an end

And of this time, I dream

I have seen the rising sea

And the fires that will be

The end of everything

All the falling empires

Are crumbling into sand

There's no statues left to stand

What reaches for the sun now

Are only flowers

I'll sleep under the apple trees

And finally get some rest

I will come to find myself

And like a bird in spring

I'll find tomorrow

I'm ready to go under now

To dive under the waves

To cast myself away

Where the water goes

I'll let it take me

I'm ready to go underground

And start out as a seed

Life is like a dream

What feels most like the end

Is the beginning.

The future lit by firelight

Dances across my walls

The shadows growing tall

I have no place to be

Nowhere I'm headed

The shadows being cast

Come from things that I don't see

They circle around me

Like a pebble dropped

Into the seas of dreaming

I've nothing in my hands to hold

I'm out here on my own

I've stared into the sun

And chased the end of night

Into tomorrow

I have a dog that follows me

He's baying at the moon

It's never looked so blue

The road that we walk on

Is meant for dreaming

I find it hard to worry now

That all my fears came true

The moon, it looks so blue

The only faith I have

Is in tomorrow

Blackbirds gather in the sky

To mark the lonely road

They sing out as I go

Far away from heaven

I have stumbled

Fish are leaping from the sea

And flopping on the sand

I keep nothing in my hands

The road that I walk on

Is meant for dreaming.

I hear it in the air tonight

Something out there calls

To cross the darkened sea tonight

From the ordinary world

All the leaves have fallen down

The sun is going underground

The sky, it has that far off pink

That only autumn brings

All these years of shallow breath

Have twisted tight around my neck

I walk along the winding path

Not knowing where it ends

Something crawled out of the water

And laid upon the shore

The air grew heavy with its breath

From beyond the fog, it called

To embark across the darkness

Into the great unknown

To cross over the threshold

Into the setting sun

So far, I've gone, away from shore

Bound for the unmastered world

No one was there to see me go

Into the night, I went alone

Before, the world was beautiful

I could feel it in my bones

The bluebirds gathered in the east

And circled around the sun

A fire filled my beating heart

Before the world turned blue

God, let it flow like water now

So I can swim right through

Now, the world is water

Now, the world is black

Consciousness is just a breath

Light is just a crack

The ones at home, they pray for me

Not knowing where I've gone

They light candles for the holy dove

For land, she searched alone

It's been so many years

Since the sun has touched my skin

But out here on the water

There's a light that shines within

Someday I know I will return

To the ordinary world

I will fall upon the shore, and smile

And feel the earth again

My heart will shine with brightest light

Like summer sun, like wildfire

For in the deepest pit of night

I've seen the light break through

With sacred fire, I'll return

From the cave, the pit, the underworld

From the belly of the great white whale

I'll crawl my way to shore

My story, like the fire, burns

When I am lost, and the light is gone

I dig down deep to pull it up

And hold it to the sun.

Green is the color I hold in my heart

The little white dove flies fast in the dark

Around the old oak, I wrap ribbon that's green

Planted by my grandfather as the sheltering tree

The oldest oak to stand on the earth

Grew deep in the heart of an evergreen forest

To hold itself down, its roots ran for miles

Wrapped around one another, endlessly entwined

The wind's picking up, I hear a voice call

To go underground, deep into the dark

Little white flowers tremble beneath

Growing up from the roots of the sheltering tree

Where the road turns is where I look up

I sing from my heart, the sky is my song

You speak in green when the spring is still new

I am the storm where the gold sun slips through

There's a hole that I found that goes into my chest

Deep underground, even under my breath

Now that it's opened, I follow it down

I hear my heart beating in the underground

Every great thing that has since come to be

Has grown from the roots of the sheltering tree

The blue and the green, endlessly entwined

From the most broken heart, shines the brightest green light

When you are lost, just take my hand

The little white dove flies on searching for land

When she surrenders, she is not giving up

She simply remembers the beat of her heart

When I was young, I had these dreams

Of the black, churning sea devouring me

When the road falls dark, and you've lost your song

I'll reach out my hand for you to hold on

I'll always be there to follow you down

Our hearts are like roots, entwined underground

If you find yourself lost, just call out to me

When you are the blue, I'll be the green

No matter how far, no matter how long

No matter the sorrows or storms that may come

I'll reach out my hand when you're down in the flood

You'll know that it's me by the color of my heart.

The country I come from burns white like the summer

White birds fly over the dark myrtle water

A ship wrecked in the springtime where I was born

Things come and go where the veil is thin-worn

A sinkhole opened that drowned the whole world

Down in the trenches, scarlet petals unfurl

In the belly of the ocean, my eyes have come open

I swim to the bottom, my lungs moving water

I walk in the bloodline of thunder and fog

Fast-moving lightning burns bright in my heart

Electric and pink like a wild summer storm

I hold in the light that could blind the whole world

The people I come from bleed blue like the ocean

We had silver fins, but through the ages we lost them

We call in the storms, our eyes move the water

At the edge of the world, the white birds have gathered

I sit by the sea, and like so many dreams

The arms of the ocean reach out for me

They hold me close until I can't breath

My gills have come open in the belly of the sea

The light that we come from cannot be imagined

Little white flowers in the bottomless canyon

Suspended in the age of tangled dreaming

Holding our breath for our eyes to come open

So many times, I have been born

Where the ocean is wide the veil is thin-worn

The arms of the ocean reach out for me

Pulling me under, delivering me

Down in the canyon, my eyes have come open

At the center of the world, a red lotus blossoms

I swim to the bottom, my lungs move the water

'Neath the white diamond sky, I am born from the sea.

I've got the sun in my eyes and the night in my heart

I am still waiting, still searching for God

I have this sad song, I can't put it down

Blue notes from heaven fall from my mouth

On the coast where waves of pity roar

We dance inside the moonlit fog

Our boats commanded away from shore

Waiting for the landslide, the mountains to fall

Crushed under the foot of God

I wait in vain for the song to come out

Blue notes stuck inside my throat

The sky can't see to pull them out

My anchor drags me to the sea

Wrapped around my tired feet

White quills push up from my skin

Blue heaven calls me back again

The earth has clipped our golden wings

We live to grow them back again

We find blue music on the wind

And follow it to shore

Waiting for our wings to grow

Where tidal waves of pity roar

We travel far enough from shore

With the white birds flying east

I breath in the tired fog

Crushed under the foot of God

Soft white feathers grow out from my heart

Touched by the sun and brushed by the dark.

I'll see you again out in the canyons

The dusty gray earth, dreamscapes of moon landings

We'll capture the light of the falling stars

When I close our eyes, you will never be far

The world will shrink down into one point of light

We'll open our wings and sail through the night

All of the roads will lead to one spot

We'll shake loose our heads, and fall into our hearts

Where we fall, we will take our stand

The bottom will open in the canyon lands

In the white burning desert where the red hoodoos stand

Points of gold light will push up from the sand

We'll dance on the spider's web, and not have a thought

We'll know there is magic still left in this world

The white buffalo, from red earth, will be born

The pink desert rose will bloom from gray stone

Soon we'll remember just who we are

Bright points of light on the dusty gray earth

We who have crashed, we who can fly

The people of the sun with the night in their eyes.

We who come from wild blood

We who ride the storm

Our footprints in the ash and mud

Wildflowers with sharp thorns

We who shake the weather loose

And ride against the wind

The surface dwellers of the earth

The old ones, born again

Our eyes, the colors of the earth

Our blood, electrified

The lightning strikes our wild hearts

We cry out to the sky

We speak to the farthest stars

To the old ones, far away

Every time the rain comes down

Our footprints wash away

When the wild raven

Is kept inside a cage

There's a freedom that's inside her

That exists anyway

She still sings her wild song

Across the blackest night

She can make her own joy

She captures her own light

We, the walkers of the dream

Drawn by a foreign hand

Our ways, so wild; our hearts, so blue

Strangers to this land

The surface dwellers of the earth

The ones that time can't keep

Every time the thunder rolls

We startle from our sleep.

Are you lost in worry

Are you awake across the sea

When the waves are crashing down

I hear the ocean breath

The full moon's riding high tonight

It's keeping me awake

Tossed inside the sea of dreams

My body, washed away

I shot my arrow blindly

To the far side of the sun

The yellow snake, I find her there

My lifeline to the sun

Her skin is warm, her body long

She goes for miles and miles

Her golden skin shines with the sun

Her tongue forks, splicing time

The water's ghostly still tonight

The sea holds in her breath

The moon, she's cloaked her golden skin

With gray dust and worm's web

I shot my arrow blindly

To the far side of the sun

It stuck inside the dirt out there

I dreamt the earth was gone

I go back and forth from there

I move inside the sun

I connect the golden threads

Lifelines waiting to be born

Are you falling through the sky

Are you tumbling just like me

Does the moonlight make you blind

Can you hear the ocean breath

The things I've seen, and what I've dreamed

Few souls would fast believe

The road grows thin like spider's web

It binds my hands and feet

Time is branching out again

The silk worm weaves her web

The yellow snake, upon her tongue

Creates the earth again

The lines are forking on my palm

I'm tumbling through the sky

The moon, she cloaks her golden skin

The snake opens her eyes.

Though my home I've not forgotten

I can't hold her in my arms

She's there inside my dreams at night

In my daydreams, and my thoughts

On the shortest days of winter

I remember summer streets

Buzzing with electricity

Kids out howling in the heat

If I had the strength to carry her

I'd never put her down

I'd float inside the nighttime sea

She'd tip her starry crown

Coyote calls the pale new moon

The ice holds still the bay

The laughing gulls call in the dusk

And I lie here awake

I can hear the killing moon

She's calling out to me

I wake up and I'm on the beach

Walking in my sleep

The winter sky is still tonight

The wind holds in her breath

I listen to the ocean breath

A song my heart has kept

Summer is a memory

Like a song, I let it play

Every time the moon is new

And I lie here awake

The world was just beginning

We caught heaven in the heat

On the boulevard, the cars rushing by

It felt like we were free

Capricorn is rising

Across the eastern sky

The night calls me to wander

An old song makes me cry

My island, she's so far tonight

The stars begin to fade

"Ol' 55" is playing

I listen to Tom Waits

He sings about the old days

The days of roses, long gone by

Every time I hear those songs

The ocean fills my eyes

She tips her starry crown tonight

The dark sea, and her charms

I listen to her breath tonight

My summer song in wintertime.

They say that inside every man

There exists a strand of grace

Tied up in the stars above

In the outer rings of space

Every time an old star dies

We can feel it here

In the stillness after summer storms

When the dark clouds disappear

When all the birds grow silent

And the sky grows gold and clear

Lifting up, the storm moves on

To start again somewhere

Have you seen the sun approach

How the blackbird greets the dawn

Spiraling on the southern breeze

She cares not where she'll land

Have you seen the easy way

Her black wings catch the sky

Just by knowing who she is

She knows how to fly

I have seen the passionflower

Opening up at night

It looks just like a far off angel

Opening up her eyes

Every time a strand is cut

We can feel it here

The white birds gather by the coast

The silver star appears

The anemone in the steel blue sea

Cannot conceive of the sun

Everything that she has seen

Is all there ever was

The birds have all grown silent

The storm starts out again

The gods, they cut the strands away

From high above, they hang

Capricorn is moving on

Like a thorn, in my side, she sticks

Aquarius resurfaces

Coming up to take a breath

The tree is branching out again

The sky lays bear her roots

Across the ocean, down the dunes

Green heaven's spiraling shoots

Playing off the pale moonlight

The silver star descends

All the world looks to the north

And offers up their hands

They wake from the collective dream

The sand still wet upon their feet

All the world in lucid sleep

Dreaming of the day they can fly.

I want to be the angel

That flies too close to the sun

In the wild eyes of the hurricane

From the belly of the storm, being born

I'll walk on gilded splinters

Until I'm burning up

I'll wrap myself in starry space

Looking down on the world from above

Caught between blue heaven and earth

In the wintertime of the wolf

The full moon's riding high tonight

I can feel it pull

The moon, she wants me to herself

She commands me out to sea

Diving underneath the waves

I have found an opening

The birds are flying overhead

To the south, where the orange trees grow

I dream of the days that I spent with the sun

In the east, where the gold waters flow

My wings, they catch the starry night

Above the wild sea

Between heaven and earth, I've found a glitch

Another opening

Like the luna moth, by the night I am caught

When the wolf moon calls out to me

My green wings catch the evening sky

Where heaven falls into the sea

The sun drops down in the distance

The wild dogs howl at the moon

I tie my lifeline to the sun

In the wintertime of the wolf.