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Ode and Elegy
Ode and Elegy
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๐ฌ๐ง English ยท Original
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Lyrics
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Translation
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The song rose first from whisper
Then a prayer, then a poem
In our toil were we alone
In our loves would we fall
Join voice in this song
Whose end outlasts us all
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The heron watches from riverborn lake
Two bodies wreathed in flame -
Sunlight shuddering on hidden places
On partners-in-trembling
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This old hearth
Makes one plea, "Go there"
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This old hearth pleads "Go there, go there" endlessly
The water flows forth again, rivergone
The heron takes wing, blots the sun
And memory, it's all elegy -
An ode that's buried deep
And come too late
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Our gardens sown in rows -
Petals pulled apart
Were hearts unready for the light
Buds unfurled before their time
O, the flowering, the overflowing
With names so strong
They hid the fear of what is nameless
We, two free cowards in blooming day, wasted it -
The vast moment, the small lives
Of those that will not love like that again
Upon a lonely, tumbling stone
That longs to fall into the sun
But circles it instead, worships it instead
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Hazelight looms and through a window dimming
There stands a silhouette of feathers
Bringing night upon it
"Go there, go there"
You are king
Constellations, to reming
There may be patterns through distance
And patterns in time -
It's those tapestries
We reckon, those we conceive
Through thought or thread or fraying light
Though god is the black between
(Though god is the black between)
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And god trades only in dust
Roused from this, may last bed
The shape of vacancy at center
This, the betrayal of every yearning hearth -
The world as we remember
I heed the nightmare's cry curving up that throat
Old wings spread to dusk-held sky
Migrations come when seasons go
And one lover, bare feet on black earth
Follow the other -
Tending every root they withered
Prayers pulled ever from tired tongue
Every gentle moment a cascade
O memory, cruel and alive
"Find the path, though choked
Trust the stars through ash and smoke
Will our wounds on this earth yet close?
Will our wounds on this earth be closed?"
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Our world is dressed in dust, in centuries lost
Our woes, all our woes
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We sing now the long song
We sing now the long song
We sing now the long song
We sing now the long song
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No ode can be spoken, no tapestry woven
Nothing sown in a dry desert sea
Gray, crossed limbs cling to their dead
Never budding again, never budding again
Tread on the backs of brothers
Feast on the hearts of sisters
Carve the mountains down to thrones
No ode can be spoken
With the names of what we've known
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No ode can be spoken
With the names of what we've known
On furrows fallow, husks of home
In every wind through ruin whistle
Every desert made by war
We'd seen the hourglass
We'd seen the sands amass
But, behold, before me is green!
The flowering, the overflowing
Grasses growing wild over graves
And one lover, returned to black earth
Is followed by the other. Who tears roots from ground
Who curls horizons into tunnels
Whose howls echo on tumbling stone
Where unlight gathers
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"Unname me, unbathe me
At long last we shall let the
Earth take its prey
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Unname, me unbathe me
At long last we shall let the
Earth take its prey
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Unname me, unbathe me
At long last we shall let the
Earth take its prey
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Flesh falls free, sinew loses hold
Without body do we unfold"
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Hearths that are ready now for the horror
Will transform. The tapestry torn
All the heavens come spilling through
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A garden, once made, will
Change beyond its keeping
No thing woven will hold against time
This elegy, o, cruel and alive
Hold all our cries. All our cries -
A song, longer than any end brings us to creation
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But as breaths slow in tandem
By a living river, a still lake
The song it slips from hearing
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A heron, from oblivion
Calls out. A final lovetorn note
Herald only of the silence to come
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A final lovetorn note
Herald only of the silence to come
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