Bruce Cockburn - Gavin's Woodpile lyrics

Working out on Gavin's woodpile Safe within the harmony of kin Visions begin to crowd my eyes Like a meteor shower in the autumn skies And the soil beneath me seems to moan With a sound like the wind through a hollow bone And my mind fills with figures like Lappish runes of power1... And log slams on rough-hewn log And a voice from somewhere scolds a barking dog. I remember a bleak-eyed prisoner In the Stoney Mountain life-suspension home You drink and fight and damage someone And they throw you away for some years of boredom One year done and five more to go -- No job waiting so no parole And over and over they tell you that you're nothing... and I toss another log on Gavin's woodpile and wonder at the lamp-warm window's welcome smile. I remember crackling embers Coloured windows shining through the rain Like the coloured slicks on The English River2 d**h in the marrow and d**h in the liver And some government gambler with his mouth full of steak Saying, "If you can't eat the fish, fish in some other lake. To watch a people die -- it is no new thing." And the stack of wood grows higher and higher And a helpless rage seems to set my brain on fire. And everywhere the free space fills Like a punctured diving suit and i'm Paralyzed in the face of it all Cursed with the curse of these modern times Distant mountains, blue and liquid, Luminous like a thickening of sky Flash in my mind like a stairway to life -- A train whistle cuts through the scene like a knife Three hawks wheel in a dazzling sky -- A slow motion jet makes them look like a lie And I'm left to conclude there's no human answer near... But there's a narrow path to a life to come That explodes into sight with the power of the sun A mist rises as the sun goes down And the light that's left forms a kind of crown The earth is bread, the sun is wine It's a sign of a hope that's ours for all time.