You as You Were - Shearwater

When you fell on the rocks

At a bend in the river

With the blood from your nose

Running hot on your fingers

And through the rest of your life

The electric charge

Of a change in the weather

You are touching my arm

You are holding a feather

And then I open my eyes

And the world goes racing

Suddenly changed

As the shock of the exit leaves you trembling

Like a bursting shell

In the small of your back

Or a jaw bites hard

On a cast of your little line

And an animal life pulls, surging, away

And you are back on the road

Through the worst of the winter

Through the valley of light

Passing through like an arrow

With your vision collapsed

And a stone from the river

Like a holy medallion

Clutching tight in your fingers

But on the slope, at the edge

Where you recover your life

You could stand on the back of a shuddering beam

With a pistol, firing shots into the air

You could run in the blood of the sun’s hard rays

You could drive the mountains down into the bay

Or go back to the East

(Where it’s all so civilized)

Where I was born to the life

But I am leaving the life

I am leaving the life

I am leaving the life

I am leaving the life

I am leaving the life

I am leaving the life

I am leaving the life

I am leaving the life

I am leaving