New River, Spring for Me

I have known the blade, the blossom, and the fruit And now I know their withering There are mountain hours that take all day to climb And downhill days you descend singing One eye on the crowd and one on the moon Your father was the rough sea, and you are the schooner Sails grown big-bellied with the wanton wind I sing of bars and the man The scars and the bands The barchipelago Scattered dots on the map Morse code lines that trap them In the punk rock telegraph "I don't think about the past" Backed with "my memory is poor" Which is the A-side, I'm not really sure, but New river, spring for me Spill your way across the open country Carry me down to the vast sea A bronze-bound vessel with a bone in her teeth There's a pretty bad sound coming from the right front wheel But not too bad if you sing along in key The return of dreams the first week of sober sleep The rush of eager overwhelming feeling "People try to be good, but not that hard," she said "Lined up at the banks with their beaks open to the sky Squawking forlornly as if waiting to be fed And every night before I go to sleep, just for a moment I wish that I was dead." New river, spring for me Spill your way across the open country Carry me down to the wild sea A bronze-bound vessel with a bone in her teeth New river, spring for me Carry me down to the reeling sea Spill your way across the open country Neither for me the honey or the honey bee