The last day of September
Wild shadows, acid verbs
Eyelids opening in my heart
You touch me like the pressure
Of the stars on the darkness
- Bruce Cockburn
I'm so tired, but I know I won't be able to sleep, even on the plane.
Rain beats my windows, soaks leaves; wets a mossy appetite. Dirt, showered to mud, lays densely below my window, ready to grasp the soles of someone's shoes. Fences, houses, roads, cars and power lines; the structures of the life built in these States, united once in the name of God, but now existing in the name of self-gratification. Nature has become our decoration, something we pay to plant so we can hide our living room windows. Nature has become a nuisance, like mud on our boots. We avoid puddles, praying for a more even sidewalk - we can't even step on the cracks.
People are a helpless thing, born to live out lives as our own victims. We spread disease, rape forests, rape our own people. Yet we trouble with the simple things, like how to get the mud off our boots without getting our shoes too wet.
Convenience is a killer. Laziness is the mother of invention. I haven't met anyone who isn't looking for the easy life. If you ever find it, I am sorry. When you find that your life is easy, that means you don't have a life worth living.
I want to scrape against stone. I want calloused hands. I want dirty finger nails. I want a sore back and a furrowed brow. I want to look out across my fields so I can see what I've planted, and know that it's good. I want to come home to warm soup, buttered cornbread, and an appetite worthy of seconds. I want to attend church on Sundays, sing hymns and greet my neighbors. I want to wake up every morning before the sun rises, so I can see light spread across the valley like a fresh sheet across its bed.
I want a night sky speckled with stars that aren't burned out by the street lamps reflecting off the atmosphere.
Eyelids opening in my heart
You touch me like the pressure
Of the stars on the darkness
- Bruce Cockburn
I'm so tired, but I know I won't be able to sleep, even on the plane.
Rain beats my windows, soaks leaves; wets a mossy appetite. Dirt, showered to mud, lays densely below my window, ready to grasp the soles of someone's shoes. Fences, houses, roads, cars and power lines; the structures of the life built in these States, united once in the name of God, but now existing in the name of self-gratification. Nature has become our decoration, something we pay to plant so we can hide our living room windows. Nature has become a nuisance, like mud on our boots. We avoid puddles, praying for a more even sidewalk - we can't even step on the cracks.
People are a helpless thing, born to live out lives as our own victims. We spread disease, rape forests, rape our own people. Yet we trouble with the simple things, like how to get the mud off our boots without getting our shoes too wet.
Convenience is a killer. Laziness is the mother of invention. I haven't met anyone who isn't looking for the easy life. If you ever find it, I am sorry. When you find that your life is easy, that means you don't have a life worth living.
I want to scrape against stone. I want calloused hands. I want dirty finger nails. I want a sore back and a furrowed brow. I want to look out across my fields so I can see what I've planted, and know that it's good. I want to come home to warm soup, buttered cornbread, and an appetite worthy of seconds. I want to attend church on Sundays, sing hymns and greet my neighbors. I want to wake up every morning before the sun rises, so I can see light spread across the valley like a fresh sheet across its bed.
I want a night sky speckled with stars that aren't burned out by the street lamps reflecting off the atmosphere.