Blue Hen

(album: Pale Horses - 2015)

Fires of the lighthouse burning in the bay
Waters of the sound sleeping through the day
Ostrich of the night half buried in the sand
Nearer comes the man, sickle in his hand
Battles in the back seat, soap box car
Black-bolt lightning car I don't care who you are
Fires of the lighthouse, sounds of the guitar
Far beyond a cure, far beneath regard

Death where is thy sting?
In the trails of Sunfish sails and curve stitch string?
Black mass ghosts of half-chewed hosts
Off the Henlopen coast in the saltwater spring

You arrive washed up in the tide
Normally alive with your consolation boots of Spanish inquisition eyes
Prancing around the stage at your advancing age
Offering stale communion to the presbyters of time?

Cousins on the swing set, rabbits in the grass:
Is it too much to ask to reproduce the past?
Stories of the ice boat wreck kept us warm
Sheltered from storm on the ocean floor

And in the morning, we rest in Corinthian headdress
On couches of ivory
And wake in the moonlight
Like badgers at midnight
To friends made in factories somewhere
You'll know where to find us, our best years behind us
Barefooted pilgrims at shrines of our youth:
'Our joy was electric, our circles concentric...'
Converging on statues of permanence

Death where is thy sting?
You ought to put more thought into what you bravely sing
Aft-mast ships of straw-short bricks
You'll soon see exactly where my victory is
The spring to its slumber
Your lighthouses black
Like virginal slumber
I'll break like the lap
Of your Delaware shore
Your Blue Hen remains
Will dissolve at my door
Like a teaspoon of salt in the rain

And I'll wrap up your absence
In blankets of reverence
A mastodon shadow
Divided by zero
And comfort your family
With words like eternity
And friends made in factories somewhere