[00:01.633]From the top of the flight
[00:07.066]Of the wide, white stairs
[00:12.264]Through the rest of my life
[00:17.933]Do you wait for me there?
[00:22.948]There's a bell in my ears
[00:28.199]There's the wide, white roar
[00:32.980]Drop a bell down the stairs
[00:38.335]Hear it fall forevermore
[00:43.115]Hear it fall forevermore
[00:47.451]
[00:59.259]Drop a bell off of the dock
[01:10.361]Blot it out in the sea
[01:21.489]Drowning mute as a rock
[01:31.938]And sounding mutiny
[01:42.204]There's a light in the wings, hits the system of strings
[01:45.678]From the side, where they swing
[01:48.082]See the wires, the wires, the wires
[01:53.411]And the articulation in our elbows and knees
[01:57.094]Makes us buckle
[01:58.008]And we couple in endless increase
[02:00.594]As the audience admires
[02:04.486]And the little white dove
[02:06.968]Made with love, made with love
[02:09.815]Made with glue, and a glove, and some pliers
[02:15.667]Swings a low sickle arc, from its perch in the dark
[02:21.100]Settle down, settle down, my desire
[02:27.291]And the moment I slept, I was swept up in a terrible tremor
[02:32.228]Though no longer bereft, how I shook! And I couldn't remember
[02:38.211]And then the furthermost shake drove a murthering stake in
[02:41.685]And cleft me right down through my center
[02:44.689]And I shouldn't say so, but I know that it was then, or never
[02:50.357]
[02:55.843]Push me back into a tree
[03:06.240]Bind my buttons with salt
[03:16.558]And fill my long ears with bees
[03:26.119]Praying please please please
[03:31.735]Oh you ought not
[03:34.217]No you ought not
[03:36.934]And then the system of strings tugs on the tip of my wings
[03:42.681](cut from cardboard and old magazines)
[03:45.998]Makes me warble and rise, like a sparrow
[03:49.708]And in the place where I stood, there is a circle of wood
[03:54.410]A cord or two — which you chop, and you stack in your barrow
[04:00.496]It is terribly good to carry water and chop wood
[04:05.251]Streaked with soot, heavy-booted and wild-eyed
[04:12.121]As I crash through the rafters
[04:14.994]And the ropes and the pulleys trail after
[04:17.815]And the holiest belfry burns sky-high
[04:22.073]And then the slow lip of fire moves across the prairie with precision
[04:27.220]While, somewhere, with your pliers and glue, you make your first incision
[04:33.411]And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision
[04:36.545]Doubled over with the hunger of lions
[04:39.419]Hold me close, cooed the dove
[04:41.195]Who was stuffed, now, with sawdust and diamonds
[04:45.975]
[04:59.063]I wanted to say:
[05:04.914]Why the long face
[05:09.851]Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face
[05:20.300]Burro, buck and bray songs of long face
[05:29.626]Sing, I will swallow your sadness, and eat your cold clay
[05:35.451]Just to lift your long face
[05:39.500]And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
[05:45.587]Your precious longface
[05:50.002]And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate
[05:56.062]Why the long face?
[06:00.215]And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
[06:06.642]Why the long face?
[06:13.355]And in the trough of the waves
[06:23.099]Which are pawing like dogs
[06:33.600]Pitch we, pale-faced and grave
[06:43.944]As I write in my log
[06:50.580]
[06:54.524]Then I hear a noise from the hull
[07:05.260]Seven days out to sea
[07:15.605]And it is the damnable bell!
[07:24.852]And it tolls — well, I believe that it tolls — it tolls for me
[07:32.584]And it tolls for me
[07:35.275]And though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break
[07:41.571]Still, my dear, I'd have walked you to the edge of the water
[07:47.474]And they will recognize all the lines of your face
[07:52.542]In the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter
[07:59.099]And darling, we will be fine; but what was yours and mine
[08:03.513]Appears to me a sandcastle
[08:06.648]That the gibbering wave takes
[08:09.522]But if it's all just the same, then will you say my name
[08:13.962]Say my name in the morning, so that I know when the wave breaks
[08:19.683]I wasn't born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight
[08:24.464]No, I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
[08:30.628]So, enough of this terror
[08:31.935]We deserve to know light
[08:33.293]And grow evermore lighter and lighter
[08:36.532]You would have seen me through
[08:38.204]But I could not undo that desire
[08:41.495]O, desire!
[08:47.033]O, desire!
[08:52.415]O, desire!
[09:03.491]Desire, desire, desire, desire
[09:15.011]From the top of the flight
[09:19.190]Of the wide, white stairs
[09:23.187]Through the rest of my life
[09:27.784]Do you wait for me there?
[09:33.061]