River Child (2021)

Listening

Let's let the truth be

Let the truth be heard

Sometimes I don't know

What to think or say

So I turn away

I know the reasons

But for me it's a mistake

Not to listen

Or to speak to

Great mysteries

It's so impossible

And so foolish too

Why would a flower

Need a fly For its fruit?

And in silence

So many folded wings

Listen closely

You might hear the

Blossoms opening

Broken & United

I won't go numb on you If you won't go numb on me

We've got too much to do We've got too much to be

If it's too much for you Lost in abandoned dreams

We'll stop the parade here

You can shed your shroud of grief

We did our best and moved on

Somehow time stops around

Something gone wrong

I'm sorry we left you like that

We're singing to welcome

The broken ones back

I won't run from you If you won't run from me

We got some yarns to spin With all your energy

If your fear is strong And wrings your muscles tight

We'll wrap you up in song And sing 'til you're alright

Come to Me

Come to me

I pray for rain I pray for wisdom

My nerves aflame I try to listen

The soil is soaked I hear the whispers

The sky is broke But it delivers

Come to me

I come again To the river

To wash the sins We've been given

Bloody rivulets shimmer

I hold your name and I shiver

Come to me Oh come to me

Reach your hands down In the stream

Come to me Oh come to me

'Til the muddy river Of your heart runs clean

It's been awhile Since your breath

Took the shape of the clouds

It's been awhile Since you gave your good grief

To the ground

Come to me

I taste the salt Of our shame

You call me out Into the rain

The earth won't stop I crouch and hear them

When we rise up We move in rhythm

River Child

I have always

Been a child

Of the river

Like a braid of fate's tributaries

I recognized my life when I beheld the stream

Passing through yet belonging

A single thing and yet so many

Slow to unfold, my liquid soul,

Before I reach the sea

And they say

"Walker come softly

Holding water in your hands

Let the fire blow through me

Let the sun and raindrops dance"

Dreaming of Wheat

My heart a bud in the spring

I sought a blessing from the king

I was a young Joseph dreaming of wheat

I just thought you’d see something in me

Had a coat from the cold

All the colors of the weaver’s love

But I heard my brethren from the top of the well

Their voices echoed down into my cell

They said “Don’t you share your dreams

Don’t you think you’re special”

I just didn’t know then About consequence

What it would be like To live half my life

Walking with one foot in the dark

Nowhere to stand or run away

But I’ve seen the sun shine on

The coward and the proud Just the same

We all know it’s getting late

That tired hand is gonna turn the page

Your visions of death and redemption

I just want to learn to live with them

The wasteland grows every day

The pharaoh keeps me full of grain

There was a time my coat was all I had left

Me and Jesus and his Demons in the wilderness

He said “You best go tend your dreams

You best believe that this is it”

I just didn’t know then About consequence

What it would be like To live half my life

Trying so hard to build an ark

In the middle of the rain

But I’ve seen the sun

Burst through those clouds

Every now and again

It took three days and nights Out in the aspen grove

To admit to myself I was afraid and alone

The stones and sky They heard me wail

Opened the throat of my betrayal

I’ve seen the dawn light shine

On the dark pond At the end of the trail

With two souls we dance

On the old roads of consequence

The shadow and the spark

The feather burning in our hearts

Walking with one foot in the dark

Nowhere to stand or run away

Trying so hard to build an ark

In the middle of the rain

Given a vision And some wood and some nails

The spring buds must give themselves

To the wind and the hail

The famine times sing your dreams alive

You hear a curse on your name

But I’ve seen the sun untie those binds

And rise up again

Fisherman

This fisherman must perch On two thin legs

Learn to search The distorted waves

The currents swiftly shift And the tides do change

And the urge to drift Comes and goes away

Living upon the moment Knowing its keen blade

How will he hold it? Will he wait or cut bait...

May I fly like a heron When it's time, gracefully

May I perch there with care

Upon my branch of the tree

But when there comes

A-slidin' in the murk near my feet

Some nourishment arriving Rising from the deep

If it's an ugly catfish feeling Slippery truth or mystery

May I float like a butterfly

And sing on my knees

Twisted Old Tale

My mother was a river Ever rippling over stones

My father left tracks that My feet found in the snow

I traced and untangled All the roots and the leaves

Kept hold of a truth that Was a-trembling in me

I've seen some hard rain And I've harbored dreams

The truth is I'm innocent And I'm guilty

It's a twisted old tale As old as the stone

We've got to leave To find our way...home

My mother was a cloudburst

Her shawl over the plains

My father was a hawk perched

On a fencepost in the rain

I wandered the world Full of people full of pain

The wild ones at the edge Full of medicine they sang

If I should meet you In the riverbed of the bones

May the twining of our voices

Call the broken ones home

It's a twisted old tale As old as the stone

We've got to leave To find our way...home

All the time that I spent Digging in the dark

While my hands were working

I was waiting for a song

Now I finally see How long

You've been singing to me Singing soft and strong

My mother is the soft earth

Giving birth and taking death

My father owns the unknown

A little taste with every breath

I forget in a moment And I slip from the stream

A crow caws from the willow

And I wake from my dream

No pilgrim has known How to do this

Each step is a guess A lament and a kiss

It's a twisted old tale As old as the stone

We've got to leave To find our way...home

My mother was a river Ever rippling over stones

When the Light is Retreating

When the light is retreating

From the clear distinctions

Of the fierce day That we have faced

When the nerves burn

And turn away from all opinions

Walk with me Down to the cool dark stream

Where the birds seem to write Out their lives in flight

Call to each other like we Long to do

Where the mud accepts our feet

And we can sit in this silence

Blood drawn down To our toes

Through our toes And toward some ocean

We've never Known

I've been hunching My shoulders for years

Years without you My dear

So climb up now And wrap your soft fingers

Over my eyes And we will walk

With the slow chords Of a dream's breathing music

Rippling out on The waters

Let's push the boats out On waves of remembrance

Each bow to the sea Listening

Hearing each other

Like the earth hears our footsteps

Each one a prayer In the dark