Whose is the hand that I will hold?
Whose is the face I will see?
Whose is the name that I will call
When I am called to meet thee?
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In this life who did you love
Beneath the drifting ashes?
Beneath the sheeting banks of air
That barrenly bore our rations?
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When I could speak it was too late
Didn't you hear me calling?
Didn't you see my heart leap like
A pup in the constant barley?
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In this new life where did you crouch
When the sky had set to boiling?
Burnin' within; seen from without
And your gut was a serpent coiling
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And for the sake of that pit o' snakes
For whom did you allay your shyness?
And spend all your mercy and madness and grace
In a day beneath the bending cypress?
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It was not on principle
Show, pro-heart, that you have got gall
A miracle!
I can bear a lot but not that pall
I can bear a lot but not that pall
Kingfisher, sound the alarm
Say, "sweet little darlin', now, come to my arms
Tell me all about the love you left on the farm"
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He was a kind, unhurried man
With a heavy lip and a steady hand
But he loved me just like a little child,
A little child loves a little lamb
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Thrown to the ground by something down there
Bitten by the bad air while the clouds tick
Trying to read all the signs
Preparing for when the bombs hit
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Hung from the underbelly of the earth
While the stars skid away below
Gormless and brakeless, gravel-loose
Falling silent as gavels in the snow
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I lay back and spit in my chaw
Wrapped in the long arm of the law
Who has seen it all
I can bear a lot but not that pall
I can bear a lot but not that pall
Kingfisher, cast your fly
O lord, it happens without even tryin'
When I sling a low look from my shuttering eye
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Blows rain upon the one you loved
And though you were only sparring
There's blood on the eye, unlace the glove
Say, honey, I am not sorry
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Stand here and name the one you loved
Beneath the drifting ashes
And in naming, rise above time
As it, flashing, passes
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We came by the boatload
And were immobilised
Worshiping volcanoes
Charting the loping skies
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The tides of the earth left
Us bound and calcified and made as
Obstinate as obsidian
Unmoving, save our eyes
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Just mooning and blinking
From faces marked with coal
Ash cooling and shrinking
Cracks loud as thunder rollin', I swear
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I know you; you know me
Where have we met before, tell me true?
To whose authority
Do you consign your soul?
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I had a dream you came to me
Sayin', you shall not do me harm anymore
And with your knife you evicted my life
From its little lighthouse on the seashore
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And I saw that my blood had no bounds
Spreading in a circle like an atom bomb
Soaking and felling everything in it's path
And welling in my heart like a birdbath
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It is too short, the day we are born
We commence with our dying
Trying to serve with the heart of a child
Kingfisher lie with the lion
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