playground some color replacement soy bean oil 1 ice ice baby

Friday, February 17, 2006

"Our Endless Numbered Days"

I get into moods--the world is changing and I am standing here kinds of moods--I want to use dashes (perhaps incorrectly) kinds of moods. Moods that make me want to do something, say something. Say anything. These moods often, but not always, coincide with a newly discovered music love, the most recent being Iron & Wine, more specifically Sam Beam's luscious, dreamy, a bit maudlin at times, pangy, stingy (think bee, not scanty) and sensual lyrics. As I prepared A's lunch this morning, in the kitchen staring into Vanana yogurt (exactly what you think it is), creamy and yellow as pale paint, the color in the new bathroom that we painted over, exchanging pale for vibrant, I poured and stared and stirred out subtle lumps and bumps and thought about people and babies and kids, listening. "Passing Afternoon" from the album Our Endless Numbered Days (thank you Donnie and James and the kid who burned Ben An Espanola Christmas Miracle/Bong Rips for Jesus a couple of years ago for introducing me to the music) came on. There's something about reference to "passing afternoon, summer, warm, open window, wooden spoons, children stir, Bougainvillea blooms, endless numbered, hymns, chosen to believe, autumn blew the quilt, misplaced seeds, sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass, hand remembering hers, secrets still, his tattered clothes, baby sleeps in all our bones, scared"...o.k the entire song--that gets me. And if I were a computer wiz I'd post a link here so that you would be able to hear the song. Or if I sang, I'd record myself singing and post it here. I'll do neither, but copy and paste lyrics because this is something that I know how to do.

Happy Friday to you. And if you think Iron and Wine or these lyrics suck, please don't tell me, at least not today. Thank you. Thank you.

Passing Afternoon, Iron & Wine

There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from the piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children 'till she let's them go at last
And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

No comments: