First there was nothing, a distant heartbeat
The eastern forest, so dark
The angel rose from the western desert
Crashing thunder and splintering rock

No birds could be heard in the forest
To the south, they had all flown away
I stared at the cold eyes of winter
Locked in, I could not look away

Hope can get lost in the forest
In these dark days, the sun pulls away
I feel that which grows unfamiliar
The night bleeds into the day

To the western world, I am headed
Where the lost gods live and breath
In the west, the light is growing
A darkness descends in the east

My gaze, it is fixed on the mountains
On the light of the campfire glow
I'm not the only one searching out here
When the snow begins to fall

It paints the rock white in the highlands
On the peaks of the lost mountain roads
Crows circle high in the gold dust sky
And we let the fire grow

A new sun will rise on the desert
And our gaze, it will lift ever-high
Tonight, we will lay down our armor
And hold our hearts to the sky

Though winter descends on the desert
These mountains hold riches of gold
On the place where the earth fell to ruin
The eleventh angel rose

Though the winter holds us captive
Our hearts still remember the spring
New life begins in the darkness
First nothing, then a distant heartbeat.

Saint Francis watches over me
When winter comes my way
When the sky grows cold and hollow
And the trees turn bare and gray

I walk beside the ocean
And by the water, find him there
He ushers in the blue sky
The white birds fill the air

I feel him in the north woods
Where the oldest hemlocks grow
Where the shadows haunt the highlands
On lost miles of mountain roads

He sends to me the bluebirds
When the cold months take the light
The red bursts of the cardinal
When the earth is frozen white

In springtime, small pink flowers
Grow around the old stone graves
In all things, there is meaning
In darkness, doubt, and pain

He lights a candle in the dark
And speaks my truest name
His hands, they hold the brightest star
On winter's longest day

Dusk begins to settle
The yellow birds fade with the sun
The daylight, it is leaving me
The winter has begun

For now, the roses have withered
But the spring will return them to life
The mourning dove is singing
Lamenting the day's last light

Saint Francis watches over me
When the darkness grows so tall
When winter covers over me
I see the brightest star.

When I entered this waking life
A dark lotus bloomed from the center
Carnival music filled the air
And all that I had was the water

You stood there at the edge of light
Making your peace with the sea
Your eyes were the earth of the forest floor
Growing beautiful branches of green

When you came to this waking life
The earth took its first breath of spring
I saw you wrapped up in the sun
The forest was never so green

Our paths, they came together
Like the branches of a tree
Two streams, two rivers, converging
At the edge of the green apple sea

Sometimes it seems the darkness will win
It's there when I sleep, in my deepest of dreams
I feel your hand reaching down to me
And I see the sun again

For when the ocean pulls me in
The sun, it stays away
But that is what you are, my love
The feeling that I might be saved

High tide sweeps the land away
From underneath our feet
We swim as the sun is melting away
Gold and blue, becoming green

I saw you at the edge of light
Making your peace with the sea
Your eyes were brown like the forest floor
Growing beautiful branches of green

Two lonely souls at day's last light
Making our peace with the ocean
I saw the sun come from your eyes
When I was down at the bottom.

I made my peace with God today

Swimming in the ocean

The sun bowed down in fractured rays 

I knelt on the sand at the bottom

One day, when my name is gone

And this time is long forgotten

I'll return to the beach as the summer swell

The waves that the surfers find God on

My thoughts will crumble into sand

For another soul to stand on 

I won't be kept by the curse of dry land

I'll find my peace deep in the canyons

The sea will take my troubles away

And turn them into sky

Traveling like a white-winged bird

Disappearing over the horizon 

I'll find freedom looking up

Getting drunk by the sight of the moon

The morning sun will call to me 

Rising up behind the white dunes 

I will have fins, and wings for to fly

When I go floating away

I'll return as the little white butterflies

In the gardens on midsomer days

Orange wings, backlit by the sun

In October, when all the tourists are gone

The dog days will fade as the goldenrod blooms

The last monarch butterfly will lift off from the dunes

I'll make my peace with God that day

Diving down deep in the canyons

Pushing up the winter swell

For another soul to find God on.

The world is a runaway train, my love
Don't try to call it back
The storm is building miles from shore
The gold mixing in with the black

Don't go searching for rain, sweet one
For it will come to you
Do you remember the sky in the summertime
There's a feeling to the blue

Your eyes, they look so far away
I can feel my feet on the moon
On earth, our souls are searching
The gold mixing in with the blue

We come from something far away
I know you feel it, too
The waves are breaking close to shore
My heart beats next to you

I'm loneliest without you here
When I stare at the moon
I go out, searching for rain
In the city of heavenly blues

I'm walking as the rain comes down
My bare feet on the moon
I see you standing near the shore
The red mixing in with the blue

I always wondered where you'd go
When your eyes looked far away
The waves are breaking close to shore
From where we stand in space

The moonlight here, it lays me bare
The surface of me, cracked
But that is where the light gets in
The gold mixing in with the black

Looking down from a dizzying height
The earth looks like a storm
A dot spinning out in the darkness
A blue world that's hardly been born

I remember the sky in the summertime
The feeling of the blue
But for what I hold in my heart
I know it all seems doomed

But all of this was made for us
There's beauty in it, too
New life grows from broken ground
The gold mixing in with the blue

Don't judge the world by its flaws, my love
New colors come with the rain
Where the surface is hopelessly cracked
Is where the light gets in.

I heard the streams of music
Being carried on the air
The honeysuckle was opening
As I sat there on the stairs

It was the first time that I heard you
That I felt your golden wings
There are some things you can only feel
Some things you can only dream

I feel like I am falling
From a crash in outer space
And I cannot help but wonder
If I'm really from this place

I am just a passenger
In a land of many gods
I find small openings in my dreams
But when I wake, I'm lost

Like Alice in her wonderland
Like Charlotte in her web
Nothing here can feel as real
As the worlds inside my head

There must be some way out of here
If only through a dream
Underneath the bedroom floor
A trapdoor opening

The nighttime ocean pulls me in
The wind, it shifts direction
The lonely glow of the fishing boats
Haunt the dark horizon

Like my grandfather, I'm an edge walker
We walk the space in between
Spinning the thread between day and night
Between the waking world and a dream

I know I will forget you
Like every time before
Until I hear a certain song
Or see a certain door

On clear nights, when the stars are bright
I'll watch the heavens move
I'll find the way that music's made
And sing it back to you

My feet, they sink into the sand
I feel your golden wings
There are some things you can only feel
Some things you can only dream

The sun is rising in the east
The honeysuckle, opening
I sit upon the stairs, and drift
While other worlds are forming.

The red sun sets over the western desert
The land here lives and breaths
They say that magic is not of this earth
But this is where it was conceived

I sow three seeds into the ground
Under the blood red sun
The old ones spoke of mountains
With nothing but light inside them

With the wolf, I wander
With the snake, I shed my skin
Coyote calls my soul away
I search, but never find him

The land here is a battlefield
There are forces of darkness and light
The old ones spoke of giant gods
Speaking thunder and beaming in light

Night can make the blood run cold
The darkness keeps close to the ground
My armor is a humble heart
When the last burning ember goes out

Such forces are too strong to fight
But fools have always tried
Hubris makes the wind grow cold
And darkens the angry sky

Duendes use the wind and the rain
To call the soul away
You must let the wind blow through you
Or else it will blow you away

Coyote is a trickster
Rabbit fears the moon
Owl keeps me company
On nights when the wind chills me through

This place holds many spirits
Past what the eyes can see
Things we've lost the touch to feel
And lost the will to see

In this age of tangled amnesia
We are prisoners of the sun
Our consciousness like spider's web
So delicate, brittle, and torn

The land has never changed here
It's we who have forgotten
We wear the weight of a previous age
Like a snake in a cave, never molting

I sow three seeds into the ground
Under the blood red sun
The old ones spoke of mountains
With nothing but light inside them

The red sun sets over the western desert
The night is coming soon
My armor is a humble heart
When the cold wind chills me through.

I am the flood, the rain when it comes
The pull of the river, the depth of the mud
I see dark clouds when I look up
And God is never big enough

Nothing else can save me now
I wrap myself up in the clouds
From my hands, the lightning comes
And thunder keeps the brave ones out

I never felt the rays of sun
Until I could not see
I never knew I was alive
Until the flood, it took me

I imagined hope to have strong wings
Bright eyes and golden feathers
But in the realms of black and gray
Such creatures don't outlast the weather

Instead, it felt like spider's web
The only thing left in dark corners
When all the stars have disappeared
And a cold wind blows in the darkness

The spider saw me though her eyes
And forgave me for my loneliness
For in the realms of black and gray
She knows how to outlast the darkness

For she who has so many eyes
Can see eternity
And where the darkness meets the light
She spins so gracefully

Staring at the nighttime sky
I think the light is winning
For even when there's no starlight
Small hopes, from silk, she's spinning

Hope is feeling the sun return
Not knowing you had lost it
For in the realms of black and gray
We are creatures who outlast the darkness.

I thought I heard the angels
Calling out for me
I thought I heard the river
Crying for the sea

I stand where the forest turns to sand
The ocean takes a deep breath in
The night, so black
The moon, so dim
The seabirds, all asleep

I stand where the river runs wild and clear
My feet on the edge of the last frontier
I'm pulled by a dream that came to me
One night when I was asleep

The ocean pulls
The earth, it quakes
The dam inside my soul must break
All of my days will distill to one drop
Into one point of light in the dark

Such beautiful dreams, I hold in my hands
Where I am going, there is no land
No curse can lay upon me
When I am out at sea

No grave can keep my body down
No more, I'll sink
No more, I'll drown
Thunder rumbles in the far away clouds
The seabirds stir from their sleep

I stand in front of the swallowing night
Choking on the last piece of light
Wounded by the darkness
And blinded by the sun

The lightning comes from my fingertips
The rain pours from my eyes
I come up on the edge of God
The light that I lost deep inside

My dream begins to flutter
I open my hand, and she flies
Through the storm, over black water
Into the dark ocean, she dives

She belongs to the water
She is a piece of the sky
She sings as she flies against the wind
And when she is happy, she cries

I come up on the edge of God
The ocean pulls me in
I release the dream, touching her wings
I know she will be back again

Such beautiful dreams, I hold in my hands
The ocean takes a deep breath in
There is a light that never goes out
In the darkest part of the sea.

She came from San Francisco

Wearing flowers in her hair

Making her way to the east coast 

Following the chemtrails

She listens to The Stooges

1969

She imagines all these places

When they were still alive

She goes back to the old songs

And finds the light in strangers

Traveling from coast to coast 

She sees so many angels

She's closest to the ones she's lost

They speak to her in signs

Iggy Pop is singing

The stars are yours and mine

She found the antidote to life

Not fearing the height of the fall

This life we have is fragile 

And we're just holding on

There's cricket song when the light is gone 

Serenading her along her way 

Following the chemtrails 

Across the U.S.A

The river coils like a diamondback snake

She counts the ghost towns on the way 

Looking out the window 

A child of the interstate

Her roots are shallow like a desert plant 

She wears yellow flowers in her hair

She loves to feel the start of things

But hates the thought of time

When the sun beams through the clouds

Her favorite ghosts are looking down

A lost child of the nuclear age 

She knows the desert songs

Her crown is made of rattlesnakes

Her soul is young and old

She dances as the sun melts away

And smiles at the sight of the road

She looks into the future

Not fearing the year of the snake

Seeing the light in strangers

Finding angels on the interstate.

I shake off the dust that came down in my sleep

Opening up my heavenly wings

The night is full of embers

Starlight fires in the sky

I'm a child of the water, a daughter of the waves

My blood is made of the fire and rain 

Diving down, I float in deep space 

On the surface, I see the moonlight 

We all have a spark that exists deep inside

It's there when we're born

And remains when we die

The morning comes, and the ocean sighs 

The white moon fades away

To dance with nothing in my hands

To watch the gold light touch the sand 

Sing me a song that cannot land 

And my seafaring wings will fly

Never will I find myself so lost again

The waves are tumbling the gold dust sand

When everything falls, and only love stands

There is beauty in the way it ends

I watched the dream of myself on earth die

Becoming a piece of the sapphire sky

Carried off on a white bird's wing

A note in the heavenly choir

I know just where I am going, my friend

Only on earth is there ever an end

The night is full of embers

Starlight fires in the sky.

Everyone's asleep except the me and the moon

Boreas sends down the wind from the north 

I close my eyes and the violet light dances

In this cold, cold world, I keep myself warm

If loneliness was just a fading shadow

And hope was just the rising of the sun

The willows weep along the rushing river

And the undertow flows down in Babylon

When it rains, the trees will give me shelter

And when it floods, the mountains give me ground

And when the earth gives out from underneath me 

I will find my footing in the storm

The raven's singing softly in the darkness

And now I know the meaning of her song 

Following these ancient sunken footsteps 

Of every soul who's crossed through Babylon

If worries are the iron chains that bind me

To this tragic kingdom someone dreamed to life 

I'll not fight the river when it takes me

And I will come out strong, the other side

I dreamt about my cold annihilation 

And then my dream came stumbling into life

The raven sat beside me in the darkness 

And in her eyes, I saw the violet light

I'm going where the rivers are overflowing 

Where shipwrecked souls are crashed against the rocks

For only through the rain have I seen beauty

And only through deep pain have I touched God

I'll let my candle burn away the darkness 

And in the flood, I'll search for higher ground 

With the moon, I'll stand upon the mountain 

And the river will flow out of Babylon.

I lay my love around you

Growing yellow rings of flowers 

I wasn't made for this time

I was born for something after

This place contains

The end and the start

This place is the beat of my heart

There's a part of you that has no wounds

And it exists inside me, too

At night, it shines a brilliant blue

The wild wind sweeps the white sand dunes 

Our breath was in the pulsing waves

As daylight's colors dropped away

We watched the lights of the fishing boats

Light up the horizon 

The roots of the oak tree expand as she breaths

Pushing the cold earth underneath

Turning the surface of the rough, red clay

Moving the stones with her gentle strength

To reach toward the glowing sun

To stand tall when the winter comes 

Her roots, they keep her anchored

This land is the beat of her heart

I lay my love around you

Growing yellow rings of flowers 

New leaves grow in vibrant greens

New flocks of songbirds chatter

There's a part of me that always stays

With you on the dunes that day

At night, two lights shine brilliantly blue 

The wind sweeps through the white sand dunes.

When I was young, I followed the sun 

And at night, the shadows would gather

I heard the moon singing out her song 

I stood at the mouth of the river

A child born under the sign of the sun

In the year of the water dragon 

Encountering every hour of the night

Learning to let the light win

When I was young, the monarchs would come

In the quiet days of September 

So many above, they would block out the sun 

Their wings just like flickering embers

When the songbird finds her way to spring

Having lost her last hope in the storm

Her faith is born in the depth of the night

When the last drop of sunlight is gone

Like the first flower of spring slowly opening 

Like the last breath of night before dawn

In the lost, empty miles under the desert sky

To the lonely places, I'm drawn

There are dragons that protect the river

With eyes just as bright as the sun

The only way we get to see them 

Is for all other light to be gone

A child born under the sign of the sun

In the year of the water dragon 

Encountering every hour the night

Learning to let the light win.

I heard the heart of the universe

Beating underground

Bloodletting the roots of the river beds 

From wounds pulsing deep under land

The pool, it is unraveling

Bolting strands of green and purple

Letting the light in, filling our heads

Entering every blood vessel

There are sinkholes in the verdant earth 

That mirror the midnight sky

The eye of the storm is churning

Splintering bolts of electrical light

I went so deep inside the dream

To awaken was the Agony

Toward a voice, my hand, it reached

A raindrop touched my fingertips 

Buried underneath the ground

Blood coarsing cold like the dirt

Following the only sound

I broke through the mud of the earth 

I heard the heart of the universe

Speaking her breath into me

Bloodletting the roots of the river beds 

And clearing her way to the sea

The sky, it touches the mountaintops 

Where spirits dwell out of the light

The cosmic iris is opening

To reveal the other side 

I can hear the ancestors sing

Echoing in the high stone halls

The voices of the ancient ones

Climb like ivy on the walls

I can hear the ancestors sing

Where earth souls are conceived

The eye of the storm is opening

Shooting fast bolts of violet and green

From the murky pool of the mother world

I crawled my way out of the dream

White fog clung to the mountain peaks

Cold moss sighed beneath my feet

On this unholy mountain

The spirits come to me

Bloodletting the roots of the river beds 

Clearing their way to the sea.

Something old has come awake 

The shadows grow, the aspen quake

The raven in the pale moon's glow

Sees what has never been before 

Ivy climbs the apple trees

Their winter branches, bare of leaves

The coyotes in the valleys howl

Clawing the dirt to let it out

Silence cloaks the land and sky

Spirits roam the places high

Fog sinks in the valley low

The hunter strings his narrow bow

Before the moon, before the sun

Before the battle of the light was won

Something walked upon this earth

That breathed the same night sky

Firelight flickers from the mouth of the cave

Something old has come awake

Raven finds a tiny pearl 

From her beak, it falls to earth

The river seals tight at its mouth

Soaking the dirt to let it out

The flood comes when the moon is full

The undertows and shadows pull

The birds have lost their sense of north

Forgotten gods call in the storm

The coyotes in the valleys know 

What has never been before

The roots are pulling from the earth 

The mighty rivers, changing course

The darkness mixes with the light

The sun, the moon, the sacred fire

Our history was turned into lore 

As what has never been before

But in the earth, it breathes and stirs 

The ancients spoke of the age of births

Under the light of the full moon's glow

Raven buries her shiny pearl

The hunter strings his narrow bow

Coyote digs deep in the earth.

Back on the road

Headed down through God's country

Peace flows like a river 

Down through these green hills 

My mind is set high

On the indigo mountains

My heart has a wound

That I'm looking to heal 

The headlights, they flicker

Like the eyes of an angel

On these dark, empty miles 

The golden light spills 

All of my troubles

Sank down to the bottom

Under big water

They're buried there, still

The high golden sun

Is my paradise waiting

I'm aiming for heaven 

Far over the hills

My mother said God

Is something inside you

All sins get forgiven

All wounds become healed

And I'll find my peace

By the side of the river 

Down in God's country

The sky knows my name

My mind is set high

On the indigo mountains

I smile with the sunshine

And cry with the rain.

A little bird, she sang to me

To tell me that your soul was free

The western mountains called you home

You always had a desert soul

I'm back east where it all began

Where there's pitch pines and white sugar sand

I see you on a mountain road

Colorado's peaks are brushed with snow

And I thought I saw you sitting there

In the moonlight on the beachouse stairs 

Your heart wrapped up in holy gold

You held the ocean in your soul

I remember you with the sun in your eyes

The laughing gulls, above us, flying

I have always known your soul

It winds just like a desert road

Your golden skin, it caught the sun

The summer wind blew across the ocean 

Honeysuckle climbed the driftwood poles

Where you and I were ocean souls

You found a road headed for the sun

And though I wish you were not gone 

The western mountains called you home

You always had a desert soul.