Time, As a Symptom - Joanna Newsom

Time passed hard

And the task was the hardest thing she’d ever do

But she forgot

The moment she saw you

So it would seem to be true:

When cruel birth debases, we forget

When cruel death debases

We believe it erases all the rest

That precedes

But stand brave, life-liver

Bleeding out your days

In the river of time

Stand brave:

Time moves both ways

In the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating

Joy of life;

The nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating

Joy of life

The moment of your greatest joy sustains:

Not axe nor hammer

Tumor, tremor

Can take it away,

and it remains

It remains

And it pains me to say, I was wrong

Love is not a symptom of time

Time is just a symptom of love

(and the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating

Joy of life;

The nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating

Joy of life)

Hardly seen, hardly felt-

Deep down where your fight is waiting

Down 'till the light in your eyes is fading:

Joy of life

Where I know that you can yield, when it comes down to it;

Bow like the field when the wind combs through it:

Joy of life

And every little gust that chances through

Will dance in the dust of me and you

With joy-of-life

And in our perfect secret-keeping:

One ear of corn

In silent, reaping

Joy of life

Joy!

Again, around-a pause, a sound-a song

A way a lone a last a loved a long

A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend

(Areion, Rharian, go free and graze. Amen.)

A shore, a tide, unmoored-a sight, abroad:

A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked

(a god)

No time.

No flock.

No chime, no clock.

No end

White star, white ship-Nightjar, transmit: transcend!

White star, white ship-Nightjar, transmit: transcend!

White star, white ship-Nightjar, transmit: transcend!

White star, white ship

Nightjar

, transmit:

trans-