Am                                   Dm
Waves toss me on the sea of desire

My legs ache, restless for solid ground

I was cast off from the bay of my youth

Set adrift on a dinghy made of slipping sands
                                             
And how the hours slip through my hands
                                         Em
I try to hold on, no I can't hold on,
Dm/Dm                                   Am/Am
As they fall fall fall down to the ocean floor


(high)

Am                                                   Dm
I am witness to the suns voyage cross the sky

Am                                                    Dm
I am witness to the moon's slow and winking eye

Am                                              Dm
yes, I I will watch my minutes pass me by

Am                                     Em
to hold on  would be death



       Am                Dm
the measure of our souls
      Am        Dm  Am         Dm                Em
is evidenced in the quality of our longing
        Am
 our aching





Oh you made me, with



breath upon the waves, pulls my sails taut




to be a witness to time like flowers tracing the sun




The vastness of my aching is like this blue floor
The aim of my searching, so deeply moated and remote

Fidelity lyrics

Darling you’re on fire, You’re the burning underneath my skin

You send me higher and higher than the limits I set myself in

I used to be a stranger to love’s cool patience

But now I’ve seen you walk the wire, I’ve see you balance

You’ll take tea with my demons

And you’ll call  their names one by one

Hold me hold me tight and pull me closer

When I’m held hostage by their guns

Darling, you’re on fire, you’re pockets are leaking seeds

I, the newly inspired, pick up what’s around me

Mercy in the root bed,  grace found behind the shed

Your love needs no searching, I find it wrapped inside my bed

And I’ll take tea with your demons

I’ll call their names one by one

I’ll give you a taste of wild honey

When from the black, I see them come

Stumbling to light lyrics

We are descending to the greatest heights

Entering the darkness, stumbling to light

Maybe I’m just crazy, yes I’m losing my mind

Searching through the ether, I’ve run away from time

I’m finding of what we’re made of, the constitution of my bones

Holds a holy secret, most peculiar and unknown

Sweet sweet fruits of life are waiting

Hanging on the alpine trees

Asking for the harvesting

Like a old pine tree, in the Willamette valley

When my roots fail me, you won’t see me fade

Bugs up in my body, and ferns growin' on my tum,

I’m not alone, no, and I am never gone

Standing before wrinkled and weeping crags

Standing before wrinkled and weeping crags
Of our grandmother madonna mountains,
I grasp the dullness of my senses.
I have been raised deaf to this language,
limited by the ravished chaos of young city verdance.
All is soulless through these untrained eyes --
The shocking colors remind me of manmade models,
Not the higher forms first built,
Til the very hearts that pound around me seem
That they could be dissected and resurrected by man, too.

Take me back to when river rocks held conversation
With salmon and it was my daily blessing to overhear.
When the campfire's strength gave us a nightly ritual of humility,
And the unseen mover was on the forefront of our minds.
Was there such a time?

What sort of meditation can come from a newly mowed lawn?
While ancient trees stand in distant valleys,
Waiting to shock my senses by their infinite stature
Making obvious my infinite fraility.
And yet, even here, away from virgin woods
 My teacher speaks, or rather points,
To the miniscule, white-petaled and delicate
Blossoms, hidden like golden refugees amongst the tattered blades
Twixt my restless ankles.
It is here that I hear your name being shouted.
Among the muted field of withered grass,
The resilient, yet quiet, beckoning pervades.

Keep to the Trail lyrics

Oh this road that I travel

Stretches on for miles and miles

I don’t know just where I’m going

All I know is keep to the trail

All my troubles, they are lifted,

I threw my plans out the door,

This life is for the living

And I’m living forever more

People sellin all around me

I’ve got no money to waste my time

They ask me what feeds my body

I say mercy manna and wisdom wine

The darkness settles in for the night

I see my demons crawlin along in the woods

Their eyes like diamonds in my lord’s torchlight

Just keep to the trail my dear, just keep to the trail

My feet grow weary but I still press on

Silence is holy right before the dawn

My lord's beside me with eyes to east

On gilded sylvan hills, I see the Sun

 I see the Son

Oh this road that I travel

Stretches on for miles and miles

I think I know now just where I’m headed

I’m going home

Post-dinner Meditation lyrics

Oh playful breeze,

Where do you come from?

Were you born on the seas

On the back of Poseidon?

Exhalations of the nations

Intertwine and travel

With sand hill cranes in tow

Where I stand, I’m ground bound

I’m like a rock sinkin' down down down down

But my soul's made of light light stuff.

So, take me wind over oceanic waves to a desert with sands that kill  

In a few short years you will find me in a meadow with ebony soil to till  

For deep in my soul there's stirring holy water and there’s seeds stocking up in my head 

So while I’m in these shoes I will make my move to breathe the truths revealed to me  

The wind doesn’t die, it never dies,

It is just changed, rearranged.

We will never die, no we'll never die

We’ll just be changed,  rearranged.

Saint Augustine lyrics

At the age of seventeen 

I left home to study

How to use my words in wily ways.

We walked with the devil,

We enjoyed our girls and revel.

God grant us continence,

But not just yet.

Augustine, what were you dreaming of?

Your mama’s sick from worry for your soul.

Could it be? God isn’t as they say.

He’s greater than I could ever know.

I left my love of thirteen years,

Engaged to a child my mama knew,

But I broke it off with so much heartache.

But one day, at my best friend’s place,

I was looking for a light book to read,

When I landed on the writings of St. Anthony.

Augustine, what are you reading, now?

Of  Anthony with spirits in the desert.

Could it be, I feel love stirs in me,

When thinking of a life lived for others.

    

Tolle, lege, take up and read.

I ran straight to my friend,

Where a book lay right by him,

A letter from Paul to the Romans.

I picked it up and read

And my soul was finally filled,

All shadows of doubt were dispelled.

Augustine, you’ve found yourself at last,

By letting go of all that you desired.

Could it be? A life awaits for me,

Calling the lost lambs to their shepherd.

Tolle, lege, take up and read.