The moment when, after many years of hard work and a long voyage you stand in the centre of your room, house, half-acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose their soft arms from around you, the birds take back their language, the cliffs fissure and collapse, the air moves back from you like a wave and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing. You were a visitor, time after time climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming. We never belonged to you. You never found us. It was always the other way round.
Just beyond my sight, Something that I cannot see, I've been circling around a thought, That's been circling round me.
Like the vapor of a song, That is just out of earshot, And I thought I knew the question, But I guess not.
There it is just below the surface of things, In a flash of blue, and the turning of wings. Drain the glass, drink it down, every moment Of this, Every little bit of it, every little bit.
I swam against the tide, I tripped on my own pride, So I'll try again today, To get out of my own way.
The face was always in the stone, Said Michelangelo, We just have to chip and clear, To see what is already there.
There it is just below the surface of things, In a flash of blue, and the turning of wings. Drain the glass, drink it down, every moment Of this, Every little bit of it, every little bit.
There it is in the apple of every new notion, There it is in the scar healed over what was Broken, In the branches, in the whispering, in the Silence and the sighs, And the curious promise of limited time.
It's true although it's hard, A shadow glides over the ridge. And one fast beating heart, Tries with all its might to live.
We sense but can't describe, From the corner of our eye Something nameless and abiding, And so we keep transcribing.
There it is just below the surface of things, In a flash of blue, and the turning of wings. Drain the glass, drink it down, every moment Of this, Every little bit of it, every little bit. Every little bit of it.
