[00:07.08] And there was a booming above you
[00:11.53] That night, black airplanes flew over the sea
[00:18.51] And they were lowing and shifting like
[00:22.76] Beached whales
[00:24.76] Shelled snails
[00:26.82] As you strained and you squinted to see
[00:30.69] The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
[00:37.50] You froze in your sand shoal
[00:41.24] Prayed for your poor soul
[00:44.80] Sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
[00:50.17] And when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke
[00:56.58] My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
[01:03.07] And there was a silence you took to mean something
[01:08.43] Run, sing
[01:10.42] For alive you will evermore be
[01:14.35] And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin'
[01:20.45] Has gone east
[01:22.46] While you're left to explain them to me
[01:26.22] Released from their hairless and blind cavalry
[01:32.09] With your hands in your pockets, stubbily running
[01:38.68] To where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning
[01:43.99] Well, what is this craziness? This crazy talking?
[01:50.05] You caught some small death when you were sleepwalking
[01:55.64] It was a dark dream, darlin', it's over
[02:00.83] The firebreather is beneath the clover
[02:05.80] Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever
[02:10.76] A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather
[02:16.08] But I took my fishingpole, fearing your fever
[02:21.05] Down to the swimminghole, where there grows bitter herb
[02:26.45] That blooms but one day a year by the riverside, I'd bring it here
[02:31.91] Apply it gently
[02:35.92] To the love you've lent me
[02:41.37] While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed
[02:47.18] And the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze
[02:54.62] And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly
[02:59.26] Gone treacly
[03:01.71] Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat
[03:05.49] In a frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
[03:13.80] Press on me, we are restless things
[03:24.67] Webs of seaweed are swaddling
[03:32.93] And you call upon the dusk
[03:37.44] Of the musk of a squid
[03:43.01] Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
[03:54.07] Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes
[04:01.00] I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!
[04:08.42] Smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened
[04:15.22] Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
[04:23.52] And when the fire moves away
[04:31.28] Fire moves away, son
[04:40.45] Why would you say
[04:47.06] I was the last one?
[05:00.05] Scrape your knee, it is only skin
[05:08.93] Makes the sound of violins
[05:16.54] And when I cut your hair, and leave the birds all of the trimmings
[05:24.81] I am the happiest woman among all women
[05:33.23] And the shallow
[05:38.56] Water
[05:40.79] Stretches as far as I can see
[05:48.21] Knee-deep, trudging along
[05:52.67] The seagull weeps "so long"
[06:00.70] Humming a threshing song
[06:03.41] Until the night is over
[06:07.04] Hold on!
[06:08.05] Hold on!
[06:10.08] Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn
[06:15.07] I have got some business out at the edge of town
[06:20.54] Candy weighing both of my pockets down
[06:25.26] 'Til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them
[06:30.11] And knowing how the common-folk condemn
[06:35.36] What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm
[06:40.03] Being a woman, being a woman
[06:44.12] But always up the mountainside you're clambering
[06:49.23] Groping blindly, hungry for anything
[06:53.75] Picking through your pocket linings, well, what is this?
[06:58.01] Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
[07:02.37] I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
[07:06.47] Little sister, he will be back again
[07:10.59] I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
[07:14.71] Spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangelin'
[07:18.70] Silently from all the blooming cherry trees
[07:22.84] In tiny nooses, safe from everyone
[07:26.69] Nothing but a nuisance gone now, dead and done
[07:30.89] Be a woman, be a woman
[07:35.06] Though we felt the spray of the waves
[07:37.85] We decided to stay till the tide rose too far
[07:42.73] We weren't afraid, 'cause we know what you are
[07:46.85] And you know that we know what you are
[07:52.05] Awful atoll
[07:53.40] Oh, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow
[07:56.84] Bawl, bellow
[07:58.06] Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow
[08:00.43] Toddle and roll
[08:02.03] Teeth an impalpable bit of leather
[08:04.41] While yarrow, heather and hollyhock
[08:07.00] Awkwardly molt along the shore
[08:10.06] Are you mine?
[08:17.08] My heart?
[08:20.66] Mine anymore?
[08:25.09] Stay with me for awhile
[08:30.88] That's an awfully real gun
[08:34.58] I know life will lay you down
[08:38.98] As the lightning has lately done
[08:43.00] Failing this, failing this
[08:49.50] Follow me, my sweetest friend
[08:57.12] To see what you anointed in pointing your gun there
[09:05.63] Lay it down, nice and slow
[09:09.73] There is nowhere to go, save up
[09:15.25] Up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream
[09:24.39] At the sight of my baby, out back
[09:29.50] Back on the patio watching the bats bring night in
[09:39.69] While, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white
[09:45.40] Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped
[09:51.54] Last week our picture window produced a half-word
[09:58.03] Heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird
[10:04.05] We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
[10:10.19] And paint and labour over every intake
[10:15.27] I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace
[10:20.61] Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
[10:25.49] Said "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
[10:30.83] And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"
[10:35.61] Then in my hot hand
[10:38.17] She slumped her sick weight
[10:41.10] We tramped through the poison oak
[10:43.49] Heartbroke and inchoate
[10:46.16] The dogs were snapping
[10:48.74] And you cuffed their collars
[10:51.26] While I climbed the tree-house
[10:54.05] Then how I hollered
[10:56.32] Well, she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
[11:03.31] Then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew
[11:08.72] While, back in the world that moves, often
[11:11.67] According to the hoarding of these clues
[11:15.55] Dogs still run roughly around
[11:19.17] Little tufts of finch-down
[11:22.64] And the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland
[11:30.03] But his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless
[11:36.57] While down in the lowlands the crops are all coming
[11:42.55] We have everything
[11:44.66] Life is thundering blissful towards death
[11:48.84] In a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness
[11:56.32] You stopped by, I was all alive
[12:06.42] In my doorway, we shucked and jived
[12:14.75] And when you wept, I was gone
[12:19.39] See, I got gone when I got wise
[12:23.82] But I can't with certainty say we survived
[12:34.47] Then down, and down
[12:37.51] And down, and down
[12:39.20] And down, and deeper
[12:41.53] Stoke without sound
[12:44.29] The blameless flames
[12:46.28] You endless sleeper
[12:48.66] Through fire below, and fire above, and fire within
[12:55.37] Sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been
[13:03.03] And when the fire moves away
[13:09.89] Fire moves away, son
[13:18.89] And why would you say
[13:25.00] I was the last one?
[13:38.41] All my bones they are gone, gone, gone
[13:44.54] Take my bones, I don't need none
[13:50.70] Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on
[13:56.73] Suck all day on a cherry stone
[14:03.10] Dig a little hole, not three inches round
[14:08.42] Spit your pit in a hole in the ground
[14:13.96] Weep upon the spot for the starving of me
[14:19.75] 'Till up grow a fine young cherry tree
[14:25.58] Well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?
[14:30.86] A little willow cabin to rest on your knee
[14:36.09] What'll I do with a trinket such as this?
[14:41.46] Think of your woman, who's gone to the west
[14:46.58] But I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed
[14:52.12] Then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head
[14:57.92] Come across the desert with no shoes on
[15:03.21] I love you truly, or I love no one
[15:27.09] Fire moves away
[15:34.71] Fire moves away, son
[15:41.75] Why would you say
[15:47.80] That I was the last one
[15:58.82] Last one
[16:04.43] Clear the room! There's a fire, a fire, a fire
[16:09.55] Get going, and I'm going to be right behind you
[16:17.02] And if the love of a woman or two, dear
[16:22.70] Couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do
[16:28.97] Is do, my darling, right by you