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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