A starling sings inside my head

The road ahead, it winds

I think of you each time I see

Blue-colored dragonflies

All the world is ours tonight

I've tied your heart to mine

The stare, she sings inside my head

Her song turns into twine

I know it's you who leads me

You're there inside the song

I've sailed the wild seas of grief

Into the setting sun

Again, I see your smile

When I tug upon the twine

That ties our hearts together

That hangs down from the sky

You come to me as blackbirds

As blue dasher dragonflies

You come to me as beams of sun

Across the hollow sky

Parts of me, I know I've lost

They grew cold as they died

Trailing twine behind her

The storied starling flies

I gather up the pieces

That hold these parts of you

They travel now as dragonflies

That shine a brilliant blue

I know it's you who leads me

You're there when I look up

If my heart could be my head

I'd never think you lost

Time is made of layers

It's there, you are alive

I feel the sun upon my skin

Here come the dragonflies.

From high atop the ivory cliffs

She leapt into the sea

She cut the gold chain from her waist

In falling, she was free

The madness found her early

For she held up the sky

Wise men spoke of other worlds

The ocean in their eyes

They had ecstatic visions

When the moon was full and high

Gold chain wrapped around their waists

To bind them to the sky

The roots of the earth had grown shallow

There was no color left in the sky

Safe passageway to the ocean

Was lost when the rivers ran dry

A fog settled over the valleys

Where the hermits were dug in

Euphoric with insomnia

They began writing feverishly again

The wise men called down the lightning

Their eyes turned opal white

The scars on their skin just like branches

That captured the moment of sight

When their sight, they had lost, altogether

They pulled on the chain from the sky

Each time that a vision's delivered

The ocean returns to their eyes

As she tumbled toward the sea

The colors did surround her

She could see an opening

Before she hit the water

Wise men spoke of other worlds

Between the sea and the sky

Her soul returned to her body

The ocean returned to her eyes.

Every time she closed her eyes

She felt herself dissolving

In the dream, she sank so deep

That all would be forgotten

Land can slip, and moments drift

So far from any shore

She rested, now, her heavy head

Upon the seabed floor

The holy dove, alone in her search

Flies into the wind

As her memories return of the waking world

She cannot find her wings

Never far from slipping

She felt herself drifting

Into dead oceans of gray

In deserts swept under the ocean

She trespassed the ancient graves

No priest could heal her

No doctor, relieve her

She painted the pictures she saw

She saw golden dragons and indigo oceans

Colors ran down her arms

The pictures, they kept her together

She searched for them endlessly

There's an undertow in the waking world

That sweeps all the color away

She painted with words as a witness

To watch what is hollow take form

Her soul, it was born from the water

Her body swept up by the storm

In oceans of gray

She waits for these moments

When light drops down into the sea

The colors running down her arms

She paints everything that she sees

She goes to these places of darkness

To search for the things that will be

The holy dove sings in the darkness

Still searching endlessly.

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.

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.

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.

Have you heard about the light above the water

You can see it in the north country all the way south down to Florida

I used to draw it when I was younger

Orange flowers, yellow sun

The sky blue like the water

I'm in the mountains now

But by the sea, my body grows

Like the ocean, it holds all the weight of the world

It is there that I don't grow old

I remember the flowers, yellow and orange

Bursts of sun in my mother's garden

I squinted my eyes, the sky was so bright

In my blue dress, I watched how she picked them

Under the green umbrella, we held giant sunflowers

In the summertime, in my bare feet

My grandfather's hands, the sun shining down

I watched how he picked out the seeds

My mother told me stories

Of holes opening up in the sand

She could see other worlds that were different than ours

It seems like I dreamed them, she said

I'm in the mountains now

But a light shines on the sea

Photographs hold all the bursts from the sun

Shining on my childhood, just like a dream.

By the end of October, my heart had cracked open

And under my feet, the earth was gone

I have always bent toward madness

Like a butterfly being dizzied by the sun

Watching my feet, I approach the distance

To the edge where the light pours in

God, he left me standing there

Not knowing how it ends

Townes Van Zandt sings like an angel

His voice sounds like the rain

They took away his memories

Running electricity through his brain

I listen to his sad songs

Whenever I can't cry

The dead leaves, they are falling down

I hear the train go by

Someday I might get on it

With the summer in my eyes

I'll go to where the orange trees grow

And I will feel alive

The beauty of a broken heart

Is that it knows the sun

It skips just like a record does

Scratched and worn and loved

Townes said, his songs, they weren't sad

He thought of them as hopeless

Like being caught inside a fog

Overtaken by the ocean

When I hear him sing

I always think of the Pacific

Of a golden shoreline far away

Where everything is different

They say God sees a broken heart

Like the stars shine in the sky

Busted stuff, all opened up

Shimmering gold and red and white.

She watches the lights of the fishing boats

At night on the beach at the end of the world

She knows the ghosts that haunt this town

They step from the waves

When the moon's shining down

Her friends are all skeletons

Her heroes, all ghosts

She imagines the lights on a faraway coast

The sky swirls around her, electrically charged

Two points of light connect in the dark

She looks back in time when she closes her eyes

Dark stars are born outside of the light

Time barrels toward her

The blue planet spins

Time barrels toward her

An old wind blows in

Crows pick the wrack line for shiny things

At the edge of the light

The blue planet spins

Torn out from space

And hurled toward the shore

Piled at her feet at the end of the world

Momentum is building from forces unseen

One circle closes, another begins

The future collects at the edge of the light

She opens her window

To let in the night

She presses her forehead against the glass

Something's out there looking back

She opens her hand to pull it back in

At the edge of the light

The blue planet spins.

In the breakers town where I come from

The old ones tell a story

Of a dragon caught inside a storm

Whose fight carved out the mountains

It's here that there are other worlds

That open at the edges

The dragon circling underneath

Thrashing through the ages

My finger runs along the edge

Of where the light gets in

Where the mountains meet the sea

The veil is always thin

I've seen the light of other worlds

Breaking through the clouds

I've seen the light of other worlds

Flicker and go out

Down inside the trenches

The dragon comes awake

A new world, it is being born

The mountains break away

As I enter through the door

It seals up tight behind me

On the other side of things

Only the light will find me

The vulture stands beside me

The earth has opened up

On the other side of things

The dragon eats the sun

Once, the world was water

Once, the world was black

Consciousness was just a breath

Light was just a crack

In his breath, he holds the sun

The water-breathing dragon

Where the mountains meet the sea

Another door has opened.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.