Track 11: The last days of beautiful

Album: Walk Fast, Whistle

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Lyrics

I.
in the last days of beautiful
we lick from one another’s
salty eye pans from which
grassy thin trails lead to
other parts of our faces
where the heavier animals
have walked

II.
the last days of beautiful
have galloped from far away
and now rest by the valley’s rim
lungs quietly working life
back into stretched limbs
to watch as we lock the door
on our most precious things
one last time

III.
it’s really just that
we are one another’s
Google Earth and I can zoom in
to where your contours pixelate
and your dreams are to be seen
with afternoon shadows
stretching across a sandy lick
left behind by a now gone river
a thousand years ago
this invisible kolk
where in a flood drowned sheep
will twirl and swirl
a funny dance with old tyres
acacia thorns, dip cans
and you and your loved ones
and summer ceilings
freshly painted gates
and the rich, strong
smell of open earth, dung, wet

I have dropped into Street View
and I am holding your hand
not that you could get lost
or I could get lost
but because it is the only
way to know
that we are both here
and feeling our way down
a familiar, lived-in
land burning with light
sunlight, fire, street lights
and a re-adjusted north
telephone pole upon telephone pole
upon telephone pole upon

This is the last days of beautiful
I say and you say Why don’t you then
climb into this sand dune with me?
so I do, I shut the sand dune behind us
and we pack the word This into a sock-drawer
where it stays with Is and The
Last and Days are set free through
a small window to fly away
to an Ark of their own and Of
is planted in a pot and watered and
Beautiful is laid out on the table
and lightly dressed with something
and then we tuck in