One Foot Before The Other

(album: England Keep My Bones - 2011)

On the very day I die, the very last of my desires
Is that you take my broken body and commit it to the fire
And then when the fire is finished, scrape the ashes in a tin
Take them down to London's drinking reservoirs and throw them in
And then specks infinitesimal of my mortal remains
Will slide down 7 million throats and into 7 million veins
And I will creep through their capillaries to the marrow of their bones
And they will wake to bright new mornings and then wordlessly they'll know

That I remain
I am remembered
I remain
I am remembered

So these 7 million innocents, they will have me in their blood
And when they die they'll burn their bodies or be buried in the mud
And I will spread through streams and rivers like a virus through a host
From the hamlets to the cities from the rivers to the coast
And from there into the channel across the great Atlantic Ocean
And ever onwards to the new world through the waters gentle motions
Until parts of me are part of every land mass, every sea
In the rain, up on your crops and in the very air you breathe

I remain
I am remembered
I remain
I am remembered
I remain

And though the things I love will be washed away in the rain
I remain.

I'm not convinced of the existence of these things that don't exist
By Jewish boys with big ideas and scratches on their wrists
By a loving or a vengeful God or one who condescends
To wash his hands down in the mire among the misery of men
Or by ever turning circles hanging timeless in the sky
Like a dream catcher distracting from the fact you're going to die
But I place one foot before the other, confident because
I know that everything we are right now is everything that was
That Watt Tyler, Woody Guthrie, Dostoevsky and Davy Jones
Have all dissolved into the ether and have crept into my bones
And all the cells in all the lines upon the backs of both my hands
Were once carved into the details of two feet upon the sand

So we remain
We are remembered
We remain
We are remembered
We remain

And though the things we love will be washed away in the rain
We remain