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.

Where I come from, the canyons are wide

And the sun don't shine on the other side

Our land is so big, our skies are so blue

All of our churches and prisons are full

I come from the country of interstates

Big graveyards of ghost city ruins

Deserts and prairies and mountain towns

Where the cold wind blows right through you

The roads are hard where I come from

You have to get by on a dream

We try our best to hold onto the sky

Our hearts are as strong as our hands

Out here, the masters make the rules

They've pulled up the roots from the dirt

Now every time it rains out here

We sink deeper into the earth

The old gold roads have turned to dust

In our country, we are landless

American dust bowl wasteland blues

Soul rebels born from the badlands

But struggle, it has made us strong

In the mad wind and the rain

Our dreams so vivid, they've come alive

We carry them in our hands

There's a wildfire inside our hearts

And there's a rising wind

The fire we've been holding in

Will burn down everything

Weatherworn, our wills are strong

And greed has made them weak

Their hearts so hard, their hands so soft

With the short-sighted gaze of a thief

The things they rob, they never need

In the badlands, we share the take

The fool who chains his soul to gold

Will be nothing when it all falls away

The hard road tenders up the heart

And builds an iron will

The badlands captives with sacred hearts

Forged from Babylon steel

We cast our anchors to the sky

With not a place to land

Soul rebels with the inner fire

Free-falling through the canyonlands.

I walk on the edge

Where the sun hits the water

Where the kingfisher dives

Out past the breakwaters

In my dreams I have always

Breathed under water

When the dam breaks open

And the water runs over

With strongest armor

I protect my heart

The things that I let in

Have gotten me lost

In my dreams I have always

Been locked into battle

The rain as my sword

The storm as my armor

I believed in something

Out on the road

I believed in something

A long time ago

In the halcyon days

The sun hit my feathers

I was the kingfisher

At home in the ether

The approaching storm

Never worried me

From the wind, I am born

Of the rain, I am king

In my dreams I can always

Fight back the wind

The storm keeps me steady

The rain keeps me clean

I'm headed back south

To the land of the pines

To relive my dreams

On the breakwater islands

But dreams are so wild

Too hard to recapture

Still I hate to watch them

As they all come unraveled

I believed in something

Out on the road

I believed in something

A long time ago

I am the kingfisher

Tied to the water

The rain is my sword

The storm is my armor.

Your voice, it broke the silence

Where so often I get lost

Purple crocuses are opening

Brushed with springtime frost

Ghosts roam the empty spaces

Where once I used to go

I haunt the lonely ruins with them

To keep from being alone

I have felt the planet shift

Out here on the coast

Staring east across the sea

With all the other ghosts

Your hand broke through the surface

And you reached down to me

You pulled me from canyons

From the bottom of the sea

We both are lonely wanderers

Wounded as we are

Where we're headed, I don't care

I'd follow you anywhere

This world, it sells illusion

So many dead end roads

I feel alive when I'm with you

I forget that I'm a ghost

We'll wait until the wind's just right

On a chilly, late spring morning

The daffodils will all have bloomed

The lilacs will be opening

We'll set sail across the sea

Side by side, two lonely wanderers

When this crazy world has crushed us

And our spirits have been conquered

Who knows if peace exists out there

But I think that we can make it

The substance of a clear, true heart

Can never be contained here

The horizon was empty when I was lost

But when I felt your hand

I saw the sun melt in the sky

In your eyes, the stars did land

We'll start again out there somewhere

Far from any road

The sun will shine, your hand in mine

Two lonely wandering ghosts.

I don't know what God is

But I know how it feels to touch it

When time shrinks down to a single point

And like honey, you get caught in it

I could hear the flowers speak

The ants and the honeybees breath

The ravens were the laughing gulls

From my childhood on the beach

The smell of fresh lit cigarettes

Hung softly in the air

I sat and watched the flowers grow

As the hours disappeared

High on the mountain, the cargo planes

Flew over Lost Mile Road

The sound, it shook the cabin floor

And air was thick with ghosts

All points came together

On the forking, branching tree

I could see the banner planes

Flying over the ocean in Surf City

The ones I loved, alive and gone

Were there upon the breeze

Every time I took a breath

They drew closer to me

If this meant I had lost my mind

Then I thanked God for this favor

Time was just a passing storm

And I had lost my anchor

I touched the edge of something big

Like the wings of a butterfly

Traveling on the passing breeze

On a single thread of time

The branches began breaking off

From the sky, silver thread was hanging

I'd pinned my wings to fragile things

And cursed the sky for changing

All was even on that day

The tree, it dripped with light

I spoke to the earthworms, I spoke to the gods

To the forces of darkness and light

Grief had brought me to my knees

And for too long, I had stayed there

Worry was my empty plate

Pain became my master

I don't know what God is

But I know how it feels to touch it

When the flowers bloom, and the breeze is warm

And like honey, you get caught in it.

I can feel it coming

Blowing in from far away

I dig my roots into the mud

To keep from blowing away

An anchor wraps around my feet

I drop into the steel blue sea

I ask God, the hollow sky

To restore my golden wings

The bloodline I follow is tied to the dirt

I speak to God from a hole in the earth

Time grows crooked like an old apple tree

Bent before the sun

My anchor sinks through the mud and the clay

Something approaches from far away

The future is written in the pouring rain

It says the sky will fall again

I am the seafarer lost out at sea

At war with my own destiny

Vultures feast on the hollow sky

My roots run deep in the mud

Strung up in the same old place

Fallen from the same old grace

Thoughts are like prayers that the devil can hear

And God is the hollow sky

Maris Stella, the star of the sea

Please extend your hand to me

I'm caught inside this hollow dream

And the rain, it never stops

Between earth and the sun, my soul has been crossed

My golden wings, I've long since lost

My character chained to the endless dance

Where heaven and earth intersect

I pray to God with earth's mud on my hands

The sky is set to fall again

My soul grows crooked like an old apple tree

Bent before the sun.

You are the sun

I am the moon

The black river silt

Where the moonflowers bloom

I am the winter

You are the spring

The sweet thrush's voice

When the birds start to sing

You are the wind

When I'm lost in the clouds

The warmth on my skin

When the sun's shining down

You are the song

When I've lost the words

I follow it back

Like a little lost bird

I can feel your sorrow

Like an ancient injury

That is how I found you

That night by the Atlantic Sea

Like the north star, you're my constant

To the world, you bring back color

Remember where we come from

From the kingdom of high water

You burn red just like the sun

As it sets on the indigo sea

Alone in our togetherness

Two long lost souls at sea.

Peace flows like a river

That runs away from me

When I close my tired eyes

No colors do I see

The wind came down so hard last night

The color dropped away

It opened up an ancient wound

And stole my breath away

On the day that you were born

The sky lit up in purple

I named you for the angel cloud

After the Pillars of Creation

I close my eyes under the sun

I've run so long, I'm breathless

Static crackles on my skin

My body is electric

When spring returns, new colors come

Brought back by the rain

The daffodils bend toward the sun

The violets come awake

But beauty comes in many forms

And sometimes it is gray

In the tangled strands of dark and light

In sticky, tarry space

On the other side of gray

There are indigos and purples

Like a dream, they pull me deep

I crawl down through a tunnel

I come up where the earth is warm

My body feels electric

The blood is coarsing through my veins

Crackling with static

The maple trees, still bare of leaves

Release their winter sugar

Lilies push up from the mud

And wake the frogs and turtles

They froze beneath the icy lake

When all the world grew still

The sun returns them back to life

An ancient wound is healed

Nothing here is black and white

In all things, there is gray

Nothing here is permanent

And peace, it runs away

I find it in the winter ice

In sticky, tarry space

It's in the color of your eyes

When the sun has pulled away

On the day that you were born

The sky lit up in purple

Glittering with cosmic dust

And flowing like a river.

When I call your name

I can see the night

I aim my arrow at the moon

Shining hard and bright

Snake consumes the hollow sun

I feel the heavens move

Coyote calls to rabbit

Rabbit fears the moon

No longer do I call my fears

Into the hollow sky

My faith is in the distant stars

In the origins of light

The earth has frozen to my feet

And night is coming down

Rabbit hollers at the moon

Coyote hears a sound

Frozen in the full moon's light

I do not call my fear

Shrouded in the veil of night

A point of light appears

I do not know to whom I speak

Each time that I look up

But if my fears can call the wolves

What would I draw with love

My heart is cracking open

Cosmic light is pouring out

I lift it up to show the moon

Coyote hears a sound

He knows that I am injured

My heart, it has been snared

I cannot find a place to hide

The moonlight lays me bare

I aim my arrow at the moon

Her wounds, the same as mine

She draws the worries of the world

And transforms them into light

She shines down on the lonely earth

On the creatures of the night

She can see our every wound

Fractures mended by her light.

I dangle my feet off the edge of the world

Where the river plain willow trees weep

Waiting for the end of the world

Where the wild rivers rush to the sea

The mundane and the mythical

How gracefully, they waltz

In the pale neon glow of the amusement parks

Hand in hand on the glittering street

The weather is so wild out here

I draw a shallow breath

There are pink motels and dollar stores

There are palm trees at the end

Maybe I missed it when I was asleep

And this is the afterlife

Maybe the lightning cracked open the sky

And revealed another blue earth

How vividly I've always dreamed

Finding galaxies in one grain of sand

There are sun-bleached shells and cactus flowers

White sand and blue sea at the end

I've had these visions since I was young

Where I find another blue earth

I stand on the dunes and I start to fly

The heavens crash into the earth

I cannot say that I fear the end

'Cause for me, it has already come

A tidal wave washed over me

I drowned the same way I was born

So now this is the afterlife

And I am letting go

Shaking off the fever dream

Looking up to the sun from below

I have learned to breath underwater

For some peace, at long last, I have searched

Another planet has been discovered

Scientists say it looks just like the earth

I dangle my feet off the edge of the world

Where the river plain willow trees weep

Making my peace at the end of the world

Where the wild rivers rush to the sea.

The vampires are coming out tonight

To taste the summer sky

There's something in the darkness

That makes them feel alive

I am just an astronaut

I have no business here

I am always leaving earth

Hoping to be healed

I know you're feeling lonely

For the world is shrinking down

And it can feel peculiar

When you cannot feel the ground

I am just an astronaut

This world is not my home

My nature makes me distant

And leaves you here alone

But gravity won't stick to me

And the earth has bled me dry

Like a feather in the wind

I lift up to the sky

But up here in the darkness

I feel so close to you

You're down there in the summertime

The earth, it looks so blue

We were born from distants stars

From the origins of light

Like wild horses on the earth

Like giants in the sky

I'm searching for our history

In the light of the dying stars

As time goes by, and each one dies

I push further into the dark

At night, we dressed ourselves in black

And dove into the ocean

Those nights, the sky came down so low

We reached right up and touched it

We climbed up on the lifeguard chairs

To be closer to the sky

In space, we were suspended

I could see it in your eyes

On the earth, my eyes have closed

But I have new ones here

They remind me of a summer storm

Dark and silver, gold and clear

In the dark dust of a stellar cradle

Inside the cosmic womb

Your heartbeat pounds just like the waves

On the earth that looks so blue

I wonder where you are down there

On that tiny, spinning dot

I think back to the summertime

I search back through the dark

I hope the light is winning there

And your skin can feel the sun

And when you taste the evening sky

You remember where you're from

You were born from distant stars

From the origins of light

Like a wild horse upon the earth

Like a giant in the sky

I am on a solo quest to the other side

From dust, we are born

Into dust, we are gone

New galaxies born from new eyes.