O, Porcupine

Without a queen, the locust swarm
turned the ground to black,
descending like a shadowy tower on a fish's back
And scattered the sticks who crawled
like snakes in the sand,
as the red clay took the form of a lizard
who rushed like a moth to the flame of my open hand

While in my little world, my sad little world
A speckled bird humbly inspired
ran across the road when it could have flown
And it made me smile
At the water's edge, Babylon
we laid down and slept
as the river wept for you, O Zion!
the stones cry out,
bells shake the sky
all creation groans...
(shhh!)



Listen to it!



Messes of men in farmer poverty;
not much for monks but we pretend to be
Share a silent meal and a pot of chamomile
Gypsies like us should be stamped in solidarity
I hold you in my fond but distant memory
while for the Mother Hen to gather me
who regretfully wrote,

"You have a decent ear for notes,
but you can't yet appreciate harmony."

O, porcupine, perched low in the tree
Your eyes to mine:
"You'd be well inclined not to mess with me."

At the garden's edge beneath a speechless sky,
as his friends all slept,
Jesus wept, and it's no wonder why
And now you say you wanna be set free,
and wanna set me free?
Well I'm told that can only come from
a union with the One who never dies.

While in my little world, in my sad little world
I patched a plaster wall
In my little world
And in my little world, I was waiting
just dying to take offence at something
In my little world
In my little world, in my sad little world
This is all there is in my little world


In darkness a light shines on me
In darkness a light shines on you


I never gathered figs from a thorny branch,
I never picked a grapefruit off a bramble bush
and for the past five- almost six years now!-
you know you haven't once looked at me
with kindness in your eyes,
and you say Judas is a brother of mine?
Oh but sister in our darkness a light shines!
And all I ever want to say for the rest of my life
is how that light is God,
and though I've been mistaken on this or that point,
that light is God.