At the sign of the times He hesitates to navigate his course His rite of pa**age Up the stream of consciousness to find its source She watches him go A sentinel behind venetian blinds Keeps the home fires burning low Like a vestal virgin waiting in the night And clinging to the highway Like a baby to the breast The distance feeds his urgency And his dreams just do the rest When he's down so dark She mails him little envelopes of light Cicadas in the mist Are rising from a whisper to a roar The way silk dresses hiss As ballroom dancers glide across the floor He's felt the ambience of God Like a heat mirage on the highway But the closer he comes The more it seems to slip away Just out of reach A single treetop peach He's stretching for with all his might And somewhere in his heart He comes across an envelope of light Driving down the road With a feeling that he can't identify A scarecrow is hanging Like a crucifix against the thorny sky Three days and nights In the belly of a whale Three days and nights In a perfect hell Then like a phoenix bird Rising in an envelope of light And when he's down so dark He gets these little envelopes of light