The Eleven

(album: Live / Dead - 1969)

High green chilly winds and windy vines
In loops around the twisted shafts of lavender,
They're crawling to the sun.

Underfoot the ground is patched
With arms of ivy wrapped around the manzanita,
Stark and shiny in the breeze.

Wonder who will water all the children of the garden
When they sigh about the barren lack of rain and
Droop so hungry neath the sky.

William Tell has stretched his bow till it won't stretch
No furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn't come before.

No more time to tell how, this is the season of what,
Now is the time of returning with our thought
Jewels polished and gleaming.
Now is the time past believing the child has relinquished the rein,
Now is the test of the boomerang tossed in the night of redeeming.

Seven faced marble eyed transitory dream doll,
Six proud walkers on the jingle bell rainbow,
Five men writing with fingers of gold,
Four men tracking down the great white sperm whale,
Three girls waiting in a foreign dominion
Riding in the whalebelly, fade away in moonlight,
Sink beneath the waters to the coral sands below.