Now the birds speak in secret rhythms
|
And the trees bark in secret sounds
|
And the people rush in secret thought
|
And they push the thoughts into the shape of words
|
And sometimes someone among us
|
Sticks her head into the
|
Shiny phosphorus blue vat
|
Of language
|
And listens, like a skeleton
|
To the pulsing of life within,
|
And she tells us
|
Of secret rattling angles
|
To watch for and to reach into
|
With strange oceans
|
And deafening skies
|
That can be mapped and measured
|
Only by sounds
|
And never by meanings
|
And once we can tell where we are
|
Using the nearest star
|
As it relates to the ragged water (a map of voices)
|
Then we can plant our feet into the good ground
|
And go to the rodeo
|
And answer the plum colored hawk
|
And sing to the river
|
In good faith
|
God presses his mouth around our head
|
He breaths out
|
He breathes in
|
And we are resuscitated in the goofy atmosphere of god
|
Where there are highways and bowling
|
And tattooed by the sun
|
A circus
|
Made by the prayer of breathing and living hope
|
And barbed eyes
|
Where coyotes hang
|
|
|
[Page 2]
|
|
And cowboys hammer
|
Posts and branches
|
To keep us inside
|
As much as keep someone out
|
|
And the prayer that is
|
And it is answered with a breathe
|
Gods lips against our own
|
We breath in
|
We breath out
|
He breaths out
|
And sigh
|
Alive again
|
|
The unexpected
|
Discovery
|
Of a b-side
|
Of life
|
|
(A map of voices)
|
|
A warning to others who would come this way
|
An animal who has seen things
|
A horn twisted into shapes
|
Understood by strangers
|
Recognized by demons
|
An invitation in the secret language of trees
|
Sung in wild shapes
|
By a child
|
|
-----------------
|
Secret Language Of Trees
|
Rickie Lee Jones |