Lyrics

Paradise is not for living in … it’s for visiting. A larch had fallen into the river and had been shaved by the water of all its bark. Large rivers attract more and more water to themselves. She felt sure he was destined to become her friend. She asks questions all the while. He is one of those men for whom manual gestures are more trustworthy than words. A blackbird sings in a tree a little downstream. He removed his hat and she kicked off her shoes. All of her is the secret, and the secret is sweet and warm. She wants everything and she wants nothing. The river is fast and the glacier is slow, but nothing can stop them. Far, going far? Far. He took her to the Mediterranean which she had never seen. I have to do everything today, everything … you understand? What, his eyes are asking, what is she underneath? We are going to live the years with craziness and cunning and care. They will make a wish, they will remember, they will relish the sweetness of it. She talks to him like a cat’s tongue, tiny and warm and raspy. His eyes will follow her into ever. He looks up at the sky. No stars. Blackness, a visible blackness. When we are tired we long for silence, yet silence we fear. What shall we do before eternity? It is in the nature of rivers to arrive at the sea. They say cats, when they lay on you, take away static electricity … fear makes lots of static. The sky is the colour of a dressing over a wound which bleeds. The young know things our parents didn’t. He did everything deliberately, as though he couldn’t think of more than one thing at a time. They have been sitting beside one another for two hours and have not said a word. I’m never frightened with you. She is on the verge of sleep. How beautiful I’m becoming for him. There’s nothing to ask for, and there’s everything. Then one night, at the beginning of June something changed. The land is often lower than the river or the sea. Difficulties twist a man. The water, astern, simply undulates. A comb. A lipstick. A green notebook. A shopping list. A pair of earrings. Some traveller’s cheques … The words tap dance instead of sing. With her high cheekbones and sad eyes, she is pretty … and no longer young. There’s no question of leaving. It’s a question of not going further, of stopping. Shepherds have their own way of walking from place to place. Birdsongs remind me of what things once looked like. The older ones explain what is happening in the world. There’s no night, no stars. The gift of giving myself has been taken away. They wait for the moments during which life counts. When time is pulse, as music makes it, eternity is in the gaps between.