When She Dreams of Christmas

Never grieve the evergreen
Cut up from the earth
In this sacred season
As we celebrate a birth

Cover it with anything
To let us see the light
As we listen to the music
And we cradle her tonight

The roots go deeper
Away out in the yard
While the moon is sleeping
In her arms

When she dreams
She'll remember
All the joy and wonder
In the story of a star
All the love of family
All the seeds of mystery
She will see
Beneath the tree
When she dreams of Christmas

Every year we gather here
To light the light again
Now she is here to remind us
Of why this all began

The roots go deeper
Than any one of us
But all of us together
Are the promise and the trust

When she dreams
She'll remember
All the joy we gave her
In the story of a star
All the love of family
All the seen and unseen
She will meet
Beneath the tree
When she dreams of Christmas

To Let You Go

I wake up in a memory
I cannot put my dream to sleep
I feel you in the room with me
I feel the darkness in the deep
You step so lightly on the sand
And thread the liquid undertow
But I can’t hold you by the hand
I have to learn to let you go

Again we spin inside a dance
Upon the edge of our last day
So little life fits in a chance
To look for words I cannot say
We move together on the sand
And thread the liquid undertow
I couldn’t hold you by the hand
I had to learn to let you go

I can’t reduce you to a song
I can’t remake a memory
I must admit that I was wrong
To keep you in this room with me
I see the darkness in the stream
I slip into the undertow
When I can free you from my dream
I will have learned to let you go

Go Now to the Mountain

Go and do the work, my son
Go now to the mountain
Find the source and drink it in
At the ancient fountain

You've heard the call in everything
As present as your breath
In every song, in every sound
In every little death

Go now to the mountain
Every road is leading there
Go now to the mountain
Every road is leading there

Don't listen to distraction, now
Just let yourself be led
Away now to the mountaintop
Through the valley of the dead

The holy star is in the sky
But turn your eyes within
Your soul already knows the way
Let it lead you in

Go now to the mountain
Every road is leading there
Go now to the mountain
Every road is leading there

Underneath the evergreen
Unseen under the sky
A glimmer in the space between
The starlight and the eye

It's everywhere
You know it is
You've seen it in your dreams
Nothing of the world you know
Is solid as it seems

Go now to the mountain
Every road is leading there
Go now to the mountain
Every road is leading there

The Holy Moment

Silent night, silent stars

Are those angels in the air

Watching from afar

In this still and silent hour?

All is calm, all is bright

We've been watching through the night

I can feel the light

Slowly growing in the sky

In the holy moment

Just before the dawn

The spirit rises up

With the sun

What it was, I don't know

What drew me from my dreams

Out there in the snow

Singing voices in the trees

Under moon, under cloud

Outside of every door

Born into the world

Something never seen before

In the holy moment

We are not alone

A light has come

To guide us back home

Body weak, spirit strong

As we make our weary way

By the star that guides us on

To the dawning of the day

In the holy moment

We see the morning star

And glimpses of

The wonder we are

Sweetness Still Found

Today, we returned
To the place you were born
In a little red house
Hidden under the boughs
Down a road
You have to know
To find
On the day you died

The air was so sweet
With the blood of the tree
Rising up from below
In a fall of old snow
Inside was a man
Who kept alive a fire

"The wood is wet
Can't get it hot
And they just won't run
They're all out of sap
When it's time, she turns the tap
And that's it, we're done"

But we drove for miles
And we didn't care
That this season was meager
Compared to last year
Coz the water that bore you
In the snow and the steam
In the air and the earth
It was singing to me
Of the love that renews
And the life that returns
When the water will flow
And the wet wood will burn
And the blood will rise up
Through the roots in the ground
And the man will distill
All the sweetness still found
In the forest I first
Ran my hands
Through your hair

Two Lights

In a lonely lighthouse
At the land’s end, a lantern was burning
From the fall of the night
To the first fragile light of the morning
He flashed out a warning
To all the travelers of wind and waves
To save them from a wrecking on the rocks

O, the winter was cold
And the hunger would lead them to slaughter
It would come for the old
With the youngest succumbing soon after
So, they went to the water
With fire for the travelers of wind and waves
To draw them to a wrecking on the rocks

Would the hull splinter and split?
Would the throats be stripped and slit?
Would the ship belly be emptied in the blood-dark sea?
In the house, the lamp grew brighter
As the keeper tried to fight their dark deeds
By shining a light for all to see

All the captain could see:
Two lights in the night as it deepened
And he chose from the two
With the cargo and crew in his keeping
The men were all sleeping
So sure, the master of wind and waves
Would keep them from a wrecking on the rocks

The Flood Inside

The seekers and the lovers
Are the first ones to discover
They throw themselves completely in the deep
While all the others follow
Or shiver in shadows
The seekers and the lovers
See beneath

They say, give yourself over
To the flood inside
And never, never hide again

O, my soul, I see you
In the distance on the water
The wind and waves are breaking my heart

They say, give yourself over
To the flood inside
And never, never hide again

So many miles
Between me and home
I walked alone
Through so many nights
So lonely and so lost

But now, I can remember
The moment I surrendered
And gave myself completely to the sea

O, give yourself over
To the flood inside
And never, never hide again

Firefly

One night, I set off after the firefly
Night-light, glittering light in my eyes
Led like I was flying where the fly had flown
This was light like nothing that I’d ever known
It was too much to keep my eyes open wide
I was blinded by the light
Drawn from my house and home
Into the woods alone

I couldn’t see there
Though I was bathed in light
I couldn’t be there
But there in the night was I
A child chasing seemingly harmless lights
When I was burned by the firefly

Seven years in Elvin land
In service to the Elvin Queen
In hell in heaven, those seven years
Seemed like an eternity

Set free, I set off after a memory
Strange now, even to my family
It changed me, no one I knew recognized me
This was life like nothing that it used to be
It was too much to be alone with the ones I love
So, I set off on my own
Out of my house and home
Into the world alone

But I couldn’t be there
Although I was free at last
I wasn’t free there
I never outran the past
That magical night
Those tragical lights
Stole away sight
And left visions instead
On unquiet nights
Awake in my bed
Her face and that light
Running round in my head
I’m haunted by inescapable dread
A vision too painful to remember
Too precious ever to forget

After Winter

So this late night brings a spring rain
And it brings me back, brings me back…
It brings me back to the beginning
Back to the early morning

And in the drip of the drops
In the splashes and splatters

I hear…

The promise of a sprouting seed
The hope of a return to earth
The possibility of life after winter

And that winter made bears of us all
As we slumbered in those sleepy caves
We grumbled and growled at the cold
And we made a bed of our fat and fur

And we waited…

Now I listen to the March wind
Saying, something comes, something comes…
Something’s coming from the green ground
Something gone is on the rebound

And in the drip of the drops
In the splashes and splatters

I hear…

The promise of a sprouting seed
The hope of a return to earth
The possibility of life after winter

Closer to Home

Heading home
After many years away
So many memories
And places I did stray

In all my wanderings
I never lost the sight
Of the well-worn doorway
That I will cross tonight, that I will cross tonight

Coming ever closer
To the home I love
And the simple comforts
I’ve been dreaming of, I’ve been dreaming of

Every soul encountered
Let a little light in my life
With words of wonder
They opened up my mind

Now my ears are weary
With the stories they have heard
I wanna be with the ones
Who understand without a word, they understand without a word

Coming ever closer
To the ones I love
And the silent solace
I’ve been dreaming of, I’ve been dreaming of

Home, home, home, home

I was wild and restless
The horizon was my desire
I’d never trade my freedom
For some comfort by the fire

Now I know no matter
Where I turned to as I roamed
Everywhere I wandered
Every road was leading home, every road was leading home

Coming ever closer
To the home I love
And the simple comforts
I’ve been dreaming of, I’ve been dreaming of

Coming ever closer
To the ones I love
And the silent solace
I’ve been dreaming of, I’ve been dreaming of
Home

Song of the Open Road

O, we rode up that mountain road
Two pilgrims to the shrine
Round shining rings in sunlit skies
Heard silent words, eyes open wide

Then climbed up birches toward heaven
We went out of our minds
The time behind, the dream sublime
The engine and the churchbell chime

Oooooo

The autumn swelled, the apples fell
Down rotting on the ground
Round the mountain where the water flowed
We heard the song of the open road
The song of the open road
The song of the open road

Oooooo

The Train Song