O, Porcupine

(album: Brother, Sister - 2006)

Without a queen the locust swarm
Turned the ground to black
Descending like a shadowy tower on a fish's back
And scattered the sticks who crawled
Like snakes in the sand
As the red clay took the form of a lizard
Who rushed like a moth to the flame of my open hand

(In my little world, in my sad little world...)
And then a speckled bird, humbly inspired
Ran across the road, when it could have flown
And it made me smile
And at the water's edge, Babylon
We laid and slept
As the river wept for you, Zion!
The stones cry out,
Bells shake the sky
All creation groans...

SHHHH!!!

Listen to it!

Messes of men in farmer poverty;
Not much for monks but we pretend to be
We share a silent meal and a pot of chamomile
Gypsies like us should be stamped in solidarity
And I hold you in my fond but distant memory
While waiting for the Mother Hen to gather me
Who regretfully wrote,

"You have a decent ear for notes
But you can't yet appreciate harmony."

O' porcupine, low in the tree
Your eyes to mine:

"You'd be well inclined not to mess with me."

And at the garden's edge beneath a speechless sky
As his friends slept
Jesus wept and it's no wonder why
You wanna be set free?
You wanna set me free?!
But that can only come from
A union with the One who never dies

In my little world, in my sad little world
I patched a plaster wall with my little world
In my little world, I was waiting
Just dying to take offense at something, in my little world
In my little world, in my sad little world
...this is all there is in my little world

(AaaaaaaaAaaaaaaa [x4])
In darkness a light shines on me
In darkness a light shines on you

(I wanna say)
I never gathered figs from a thorny branch
(I wanna say)
I never picked a grape off a bramble bush
(I wanna say)
For the past five, almost six years now
(That light is God)
You haven't once looked at me with kindness in your eyes
(I wan-)
And you say Judas is a brother of mine
(-na say)
Oh, but sister in our darkness a light shines
(I wanna say)
And all I want to say for the rest of my life
(I wanna say)
Is how that light is God
(That light is God)
And though I've been mistaken on this or that point
That light is God