If the Garden Only Knew

Here's the final song of the night, a piece still in the process of being arranged but that I thought would send us off, maybe in a hopeful mood? Nothing about a song like this and a show like this works without an audience that gives the special kind of attention that makes art work. If mine worked at all on this night, it's because of them. And, now, maybe too, you.

Lyrics

If the Garden Only Knew

If the garden only knew
what we already know
It wouldn’t grow, it wouldn’t grow, it wouldn’t grow

If the garden knew
    the weeds to come rising
    fighting at its roots
If the garden knew
    the fall and the frost,
    and the shriveling of leaves
    that once kissed the light
    and made a whisper of the whipping wind
if the garden knew
    the hunch in every brittle branch
    that once stood tall

If the garden only knew
what we already know
It wouldn’t grow, it wouldn’t grow, it wouldn’t grow

If the garden knew
    the reaping and the threshing
    and the quiet choke of bailing wire
If the garden knew
    the thieving hands of harvest
    the clenching jaws of insect plagues
If the garden knew
    the bruisey hue of blight
    the parch of drought, the whitefly cloud
    the endless drench of rain on rain

If the garden only knew what we already know,
but the garden doesn’t know
what we know right now,

how to hold each other close, 
how to read each other’s brow, 
to sow the furrows we may find, 
how to lay ourselves in bed at night 
and rise together, in dark or light.

If the garden only knew
it wouldn’t grow, it wouldn’t grow, it wouldn’t grow

  The garden loathes a fallow field,
  the garden seeds the naked soil
  without toil or trowel.
  Then wills its shoots and winds its vines
  spindly and fine, spindly and fine
  like your life and mine.

If the garden knew
    the wilt and the rot
    the dying back,
    the aftermath
If the garden knew
    that nothing warms under
    a shroud of snow

What the garden can’t forgive,
we already know
What the garden can’t forgive,
we already know
What the garden can’t forgive
is not to love,
is not to love,
is not to live

(If the garden knew . . .)

Lyrics

Halfheartedly

He’s the man who follows his heart. Halfheartedly
I am the man who follows his heart.
I am the man who follows his heart, with half his heart
and a thin deck of cards
to pass the time on long train rides
across Americas of possibility
across Europes of what could be
if only, if only, if only

He’s the man who follows his heart. Halfheartedly
I am the singer who answers his calling,
the singer who answers his calling,
pianissimo, ma non troppo,
to save his throat for the opening notes,
slow the tempo and change the key,
chase the god from the machinery,
then I tear it down like scenery,
and curse the stage for what it’s done to me,
but sotto voce, sotto voce, sotto voce.

The heart too must follow its heart
but--unlike the man who in the doorway stands
and is constantly called:
Keep up! Stay focused!--

the heart’s shoes never need tying.
The heart stops for no water or rest.
The man asks “What have I accomplished?”
while the heart follows every beat
with another beat, another beat.

He’s the dreamer living the dream—Yes I am!
He’s the dreamer living the dream— I’m living it, baby!
He’s the dreamer living his dream— Oh, that’s me!
He’s the dreamer living his dream. I’m half awake,
with a whole faith to leap,
Two feet on the lake,
when I walk in my sleep
Across Americas of oooh -Yes I know!
Across Europes of oooh -I got to go!
Along the banks of the oooh -Maybe the banks of the Amazon
or just to walk along the road I’m on!
And hearts shoes, never need tying.

Deep in the chest
there lives a reminder
of how to be of how to be of how to be.