Joe Henry Blood Of The Forgotten Song
We talked the sun down
From off its high ledge
And it left us alone in the dark-
Feeling our way
By the thread of our veins
That speak of our quickening hearts
The days fall and break like promises made
By those that claim never to change
But lives are made whole from the ones come undone at our feet that we rearrange
By morning there will be smoke in this room and shouts in the street before long
Our future writ out on the walls of the past in the blood of the forgotten song
Delores stands tall
At her father's arm
His hand disappeared at her side
Their faces opposed
Like jacks on a card
In a picture when she was a bride;
And love but a ghost rode up from the shore where dreams run away with the sea
And leave us to fade in the heat of a shade moving slowly as your eyes to me
Oh how can you tell me
What you've come to know
Oh how will I ever shake free
Of what I've assumed
From the shape of these rooms
About all that we ever might be?
There's nothing divine in the marking of time for it slips every frame we intend
A river above us, it laughs at and loves us, confusing our beginnings and ends