I\’ve been listening to this somber, quiet song. The lyrics are beautiful poetry. Not often have I been so impressed with the phrasing and structure of lyrics as with 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 bloomsThere 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 leavesThere are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children until 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 seedsThere 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 around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I’d never learnedThere are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window 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