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.

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.

Mountain slopes and fishing boats

Line the Nha Trang Bay

Rising from the jungle's fog

Half a world away

The Cao Dai eye, with dragon's fire

Protects the temple gates

Looking out on Vietnam

The war where the sun never sets

From Cambodia, headed east

As the crow flies, eleven miles

The rice patties there get bombed to hell

When the sky goes up in fire

I don't waste my time with God

He'd kill me if I'd die

I believe only in air support

Wild-eyed angels from the sky

Buddhist temples and banana groves

Rise from the lowland heat

I hear the beasts in the jungle roar

In the place where no one sleeps

All souls run together in the Mekong Delta

The sky, she holds back the rain

The dragon returns, breathing fire

The jungle's on fire again

We walk through hell, holding onto our souls

Our wounds are open wide

Air support is getting close

Descending like gods from the sky

Our empire has a thirst for blood

And an appetite for gold

It's not enough to die out here

They also want your soul

I found a way to heaven

Cutting hell with the opium white

On top of the Black Virgin Mountain

I've seen the all-seeing eye

I sleep under a foreign moon

And sweat under a strange, sad sun

I know I won't be leaving here

Should I make it home

This place, it takes your soul away

And every time I sleep

I feel the hands upon my throat

That stole my soul from me

I see the clouds glowing opium white

In the mountains, so far away

The sun, it sets on Nui Ba Den

Half a world away.

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.

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.

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.

Sorrow can clip the wild bird's wings

And take away her will to sing

You must make your own light here

Don't ever let them take it, my 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 hearts 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

Your brave heart, burning bright

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, my dear.

I have these dreams where I am traveling

Chasing the sunsets into the morning

Collecting the magic parts of the night

In the country of ever-lasting big sky

Up in the north country, we get these nights

When you can see every star in the sky

My winter heart, it comes alive

To see it all cracked open wide

I have these dreams of the festival streets

The wind in my hair and the sand on my feet

The seagulls calling in the night

Freedom cracking open wide

Down in the lowlands, we'd get these nights

When the moon would hit the water just right

We'd leave the earth for a little while

Inside the night, we learned to fly

I have these dreams that I am surfing

Catching freedom in a single motion

I come from where the world is blue

On a stretch of sand where the sun gets through

A thousand miles away from my home

I stop and watch the sun go down

My sun is in Aries, my moon is in Cancer

Fire and water are the signs of the traveler

My mother named me for the night

For the path of the soul, traveling through time

You'll find me where the world is blue

Where the night is thick and the dreams bleed through.

I go down to the water

To wash my worries away

I need something much bigger than me

Something much farther away

In the winter, I walk the empty beach

The only soul out on the sand

Time is a circle, you see it there

Where the far blue horizon bends

Lightning splits the hollow sky

The power lines crackle above

Mainlining the source of the universe

Cosmic love flooding into my blood

My blood runs blue like the ocean

My eyes hold the gray winter sea

I get my peace at a distance

From something much bigger than me

I'm the only soul still out on the sand

Before the hurricane begins

Except for the surfers catching the waves

Who exist in a parallel dream

The stars in black space are like beacons

Fellow wanderers in the night

Up where the light is winning

Somewhere on the other side

When the days are short, but life is long

When March is in its ides

Before the springtime floods the rivers

And I've lost my places to hide

In the last cold days of winter

When no one is out on the sand

When it seems like the darkness is winning again

I go to where the horizon bends

My home is where the ocean is

Where the city streets end at the beach

Where the locals surf the wild sea

And a soul can hold onto a dream

My blood runs blue like the ocean

My eyes hold the gray winter sea

I get my peace at a distance

From something much bigger than me.