1. |
||||
Think that / or imagine you are just / just gliding
The hawk flies / in clear skies / mirroring fire / floating higher
higher than any spire
unconcerned or aware / of empty / forgotten prayers
He’s one with the air
His golden skull / all full of null / and void
except for the will of God
and not with crazed incessant sounds
the noisy echoes that pull us to what makes us ill
Why do we go / after what drives us mad / you know?
We push and elbow / grabbing what makes us sad / like every ego fad
Quiet the mind / find your flow aligned / or stay blind
Nothing comes of —
Making the same / blunder a thousand times / that’s just inane and lame
And how to go sane / reading between the lines
when all the lines are your chains?
It isn’t easy
You’ll have to show some spine / some spirit
Move from within / Bust out of what confines / Because
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2. |
A Certain Continuum
05:06
|
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Because / Because / Because
There’s a mystery / an enigma / there’s a memory oh so slight
There’s a message / in the mirror / that will flicker to a spark / of light
Turn the dark in to sight
Questions about love are as old as / everything that’s ever been
Questions linger on until the end
There’s a ribbon / in the river / that is running through your heart
There’s a whisper / in the water / with a wisdom to impart:
Restart …
Be your own / work of art
Questions about life are as old as / everything that’s ever been
Questions linger on until the end
We are the face in the mirror / and the mirror
We are tasting forever / every moment
WE are stars in the night / and we are the night
There’s a ribbon / in the river / that is running through your heart
There’s a whisper / in the water / with a wisdom to impart:
Restart …
Be your own / work of art
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3. |
Stays
05:28
|
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There was a man on the second floor
He’d always retreat behind his door
whenever I’d come off a tour
From what I gathered he’d never leave the floor
I’d hold my breath when I’d hear his sneak-ering pause at the door
Creaking the floor
hiding, for sure
________________
Once came a fiery flame / and the fireman came
Hurrying staircases / dropping floods up / up above me
Making a vertical sea
We ran around saving what could / until the fireman said that we should
Get out of doors and stay for good / like we knew we should
They brought the man from the second floor / He was carried out by police and more
Pitching forward / running out of air / down the stair / into glaring lights
Looking unaware of the night
They set him down and he sat by me
For once in time began speaking free / pointing out a flaming tree
Just two refugees / looking at the spectacle sight / and crying
That was when he said something to the air
“I saw a burning like this before / The fire there / it was war, for sure
Screaming into the air / Soldiers on the stair / I could only stare / I couldn’t endure”
Looking at the man / he was pretty old
And I began to fear he was shuddering from the cold
But what he said sent an icy hold & told me what his unconsoled / beholding eyes knew:
“I lost my family in ’42
The reason I would hide from your view:
The SS man looked just like you”
________________
From what I gathered he’d never leave the floor
I’d hold my breath when I’d hear his sneak-ering pause at the door
Creaking the floor
hiding, for sure
________________
‘Cause where is the cure? / & how to endure?
When fear and hate is such a lure
At history’s core
The answer’s obscure . . .
|
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4. |
||||
Just as sunlight casts a shadow / the first shade of another day
Interrupted in his sleep / still in half a dream
Nettled into awaking / wishing light away
Drinking his cup of coffee / puzzling what he wants to say
The evening before he’d tried to tell it
He’d showed off all his ecstatic truths
… and wine had encouraged his bray
He’d gone to bed / long before the point was proved
And risen / deep in the night / to walk
To wander under stars / And time and again
He’d wished then / that his children had come walking with hm
To wonder at stars / until they grew dim
Sharing the thoughts that spin him / like butterflies trapped within him
______________
And so he thinks himself unlucky / this someone who has eyes to see
Who finds stars when wanting stars / who can sing the moon
Someone whose feet get sandy / in the hidden dunes
Someone who knows the ocean / who knows what he has to do
He still thinks his mind is full of tangles
Whose mind to him just a mangle is
… and who thinks his poems a mess
Even though he tells the truth / long before the point is proved
And rises / deep in the night / to write
To wander until light / and fly words like kites
Whose children / share their father’s inner intuition
To sing to the moon / I think maybe soon
Somebody ought to tell him / Maybe we ought to tell him
Something he ought to know
Something his poems show
|
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5. |
Stage I
05:04
|
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like being in a story
like starring in a play
acting out some destiny
far, far away from anywhere
like watching yourself
walk down the street
like what’s new?
tossing your hair
watching people watching you
hanging out in No-Town
like you knew the Lingo
like flying kites
from a basement window
like checking it out
saying to yourself
yes okay yes
like going somewhere
like Astral Weeks
for months on end
and always Blue
mean old daddy
and do the way young lovers do
like finding a room
and painting it white
like a bridal gown
like being with someone
like we were going somewhere
like a Chelsea Morning
like a Tenderberry
oh, darling
like I was never there
|
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6. |
||||
I have just four / the treasures of my spirit
Laying like doves / all around my heart
In memory they soar / But only I can see it
Gone, as with love / since we’ve been torn apart
The oldest was a girl / Curious of eye and gen/tle/she
The next was a boy / Mighty
Then came along / a boy who brought us laughter
And finally the babe / safe in her mother’s arms
And each was a joyful gift of God
But what God gives you - God can take it too
____________________________________
Escaping with the nestlings of my heart / to swim through the ice
Across The Ohio’s frozen bridge of hopes
The the sky that held the Bright Northern star
was as cold as the frigid sea
We’d rush over open fields
and hide in woods crowded with feeble trees
in fear and tears and whispered hymns and prayers
to find where some safe place might be
Dangerous bargains were entered then
Signed, with my finger the bloody pen
… Scared of the smuggling men
Prayed, and then prayed again
But (still) the blood-thirsty dogs gave raging chase …
My hope began to fall / I couldn’t save us all
Where no one would hear us call / The river became a wall
What did I do?
We were too few / with dreams to pursue
We couldn’t push through …
Judea's refuge cities had power
To shelter, shield and save,
E'en Rome had altars, 'neath whose shade
Might crouch the wan and weary slave.
But Ohio had no sacred fane,
To human rights so consecrated,
Where thou may'st shield thy hapless ones
From their darkly gathering fate.**
And so I pleaded for strength enough
to strike a blow for freedom
Oh Lord … transfigure us!
Knowing we would soon be seeing heaven made my heart a shining flare
I lit a torchlight with God’s flaming words and set ablaze my head of hair
Rising to the air I felt a sense of power reaching everywhere
Overcoming all that I could see / The Lord’s Holy Spirit used me
And, seeing the pathway / my children let go their fright
Surrendering nothing / they burned up their place in the night
_________________
Now they’re with God / surrounded by the angels
Someday I’ll see / my doves once again / with all of the heavenly host
. . . Amen
|
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7. |
Stages II,III
04:26
|
|||
I live in a white room
it is empty
and silent
I wear a white dress
it is soft
and light
I live in a white room
with a narrow flight of stairs
spiralling upwards
right through the ceiling
into the night air
there I summon a small wind
to undo my clothing
there I capture a moonbeam
to wipe out my shadow
to unweave my skin
to start the unravelling
now cross the room
now climb the stairs
now walk through me
I won’t feel a thing
I am not remembering
I must bathe
in the moonlight
I must reclaim
my old sadness
my old,discarded coat
I must retrace my steps
and climb
the stony hillside
far above the monuments
I must seek out
my old domain
my old stomping-grounds
I must become one
with my shadow
I must bathe
in the moonlight
and howl
and howl
|
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8. |
||||
I used to hear the running of the river as a song with no ending
The sound was like a message to my spirit that the river was sending
The rushing of the water played with harmonies continually ascending
Enchanted by the river I would stand alone in fear / and ever trembling
The Rio Grande filled my heart
But now I've seen a side of things that makes the song a curious tune
(It seems) the river is a siren calling underneath a cowardly moon
And harmonies grow darker as as the revelation opens up to me
(and up to you)
Because now I’ve seen the river kill our brother and our tiny sister too
The Rio Grande has drowned my heart
Of course, it’s not the river / It’s the people we’ve elected to lead us
Who make the walls and send the armored wagons for the ones who would join us
While billionaires recline upon divans upholstered in the skins of slaughter
And feast upon the children we should think of as our only sons and daughters
America, you’ve lost your heart
(And it’s no excuse / just being blind)
America, you’ve lost your mind
|
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9. |
Rabo de Nube
03:20
|
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10. |
Esperanto
05:01
|
|||
There’s a secret that never dies / Like a dance of hidden meanings
that we never apprehend
There are questions just as old as time / And the answers that come
never quite make amends
Even so when you look at time / You can get a subtle feeling of the way it ought to be
Take a good look at your own real life / And you will see if you want what you’ve gotten to be
It’s a hope / a sign / a measure of quiet rapture / of love
and what might come after
It’s letting go / and letting no answer be an answer
________
How did smoke learn how to fly? Where do birds go off to die?
Why does coal sleep in darkness? Do dreams live in apartments?
Is a number forever? Where’s the soul of the water?
How old is old November? No one here can remember . . .
If I die, where does time go? Do the bees feel vertigo?
To get love, is there potion? Or is love only motion?
________________
Holy lift / holy reading — Holy gift / Holy needing
Holy sound / holy waiting — Holy light / animating
Holy food / Holy breathing — Holy light interweaving
Holy night / Holy handwrite — Holy flight / Holy insight
Holy Sun / Holy brother — Holy moon / Holy mother
Holy dream / Holy vision — Holy scheme / Holy mission
Holy one to another — Holy me / holy other
Holy lives / holy blending / Holy start / holy ending
|
||||
11. |
Epílogo
01:32
|
|||
12. |
Overjoyed (Bonus Track)
05:47
|
Kurt Elling Chicago, Illinois
Renowned for his singular combination of robust swing and poetic insight, GRAMMY winner Kurt Elling has secured his place among the world’s foremost jazz vocalists. Declared “the standout male vocalist of our time” by The New York Times, Elling has garnered unprecedented accolades, including a fourteen-year run atop the DownBeat Critics Poll, as well as a dozen GRAMMY nominations ... more
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