{"id":44,"date":"2011-09-09T15:47:02","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T15:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/site\/?page_id=44"},"modified":"2019-10-13T09:45:33","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T13:45:33","slug":"album-sparrows-wing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/?page_id=44","title":{"rendered":"Album: Sparrow’s Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preview and Download tracks or the entire album at<\/strong>:\u00a0Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"1. Cricket Dance 1:16
\n2. Next Turn of the Wheel 7:49 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n3. Under the Summer Moonlight 4:31 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n4. All That Is 3:47 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n5. Edge of the Earth 3:15
\n6. 11:11 7:31 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n7. These Broken Hills 4:12 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n8. Come Againe, Sweete Love Doth Now Envite 4:59
\n9. Stormfront 7:05 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n10. Threshold 8:10 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n11. Sparrow’s Wing 7:19 (lyrics<\/a>)
\n12. Untitled Track 2:00<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\n\"\"<\/form>\n

;<\/p>\n

\u00a91999 Snowgoose<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>
\nNext Turn of the Wheel<\/strong><\/p>\n

It could break your heart to watch the sun
\nStrike gold along this shore
\nwhere the little boats still bump and spin
\nAs they did long years before<\/p>\n

The harbour lights burn dim tonight
\nThey’ve closed these boats all down
\nAnd the men all stand in silence
\non the corners of the stand<\/p>\n

And they stand and smoke by empty stores
\nAnd they watch the cars roll by
\nthey stare into the distance
\nwith hard and angry eyes<\/p>\n

So it’s farewell to the harbour
\nfarewell to the fields
\nfarewell to deep salt water
\nthat swells beneath your keel
\nWhat’s gone is lost forever
\nI pray someday we’re healed
\nand that we’ll meet again some brighter day
\nnext turn of the wheel<\/p>\n

And the houses here look much the same
\nwell perhaps a bit more worn
\nand the shingles gleam like silver
\nas they did when we were born
\nand the scent of pine and moss and vine
\nyes and rose and bayleaf too
\nstill spice the warm and fragrant air as they did back in my youth<\/p>\n

So it’s farewell to the harbour
\nfarewell to the fields
\nfarewell to deep salt water
\nthat swells beneath your keel
\nWhat’s gone is lost forever
\nI pray someday we’re healed
\nand that we’ll meet again some brighter day
\nnext turn of the wheel<\/p>\n

I dipped my hand into the sea
\nand raised it to my mouth
\nand a sudden warm breeze stirred the air and
\nblew up from the south
\nand the air was sweet with blossoms
\nand the sea was salt with tears
\nand the sun danced on the water
\nI was swept back through the years<\/p>\n

I climbed the hill and I paused for breath
\nyes and one last backward glance
\ndown by the green and emeralds hill
\nwhere the fragile cornflowers dance<\/p>\n

and I stood once more and I crossed the ridge
\nof that dear familiar hill
\nand the beating of the waves was lost
\nlike a heart forever stilled.<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nUnder the Summer Moonlight<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well Dougie was a soldier
\nhe brought home a bride
\nCicely crossed the ocean wide
\nAll these years now at his side
\nthrough the good and the bad times together<\/p>\n

and they had a little house
\nmade it a home
\nboth worked hard till the kids were grown
\nFinally now they’re on their own
\nthough it seemed like it took forever<\/p>\n

Cause when the sun beats low and the day is through
\nHurry through dinner no time to lose
\nTime to polish up their dancing shoes
\nand head to the hall together<\/p>\n

So start up the fiddle and watch them go
\nHigh stepping on the dance floor
\nheel and toe
\neyes so bright, faces aglow
\nUnder the Summer moonlight<\/p>\n

Well some days are good and some days are fair
\nand some days make you want to tear your hair
\nbut tonight she’s Ginger and he’s Fred Astaire
\nCheek to cheek on the floor so lightly<\/p>\n

So here’s to the moonlight
\nHere’s to the band
\nhere’s to the fiddler who plays so grand
\nhere’s to the couple dancing hand and hand
\nUnder the summer moonlight<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nAll that Is<\/strong><\/p>\n

Who can tell when in love you’ll finally fall?
\nSome live in vain and never love at all
\nbut as lightning strikes
\nor as a small insistent voice
\nif we are blessed
\nwe will hear and heed the call<\/p>\n

Give your love and never count the cost
\nLose your heart and never call it lost
\nMay your love be your shelter
\nto the ending of your days
\nlove is all that is, all that ever was<\/p>\n

May your love grow strong and always kind
\nMay your hearts grow forever more entwined
\nIn the brightest day or the stillness of the night
\nMay it be each others hand you seek and find<\/p>\n

Never more to be alone
\nEver closer you have grown
\nForever now may no distance come between
\nAnd in each other’s loving hearts you find a home<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n11:11<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah the glorious few are all the few here
\nin the cold November air
\nthe crowd draws silent
\ntheir collars raised
\nto the edges of the square
\nThe children’s choir sings “In Flander’s Fields”
\nthe band plays “Over There”
\nthe old heroes still try to dress the line
\nAs the chaplain leads the prayer<\/p>\n

For the glorious few no longer stand so straight
\nAs they did long years before
\nwhen they faced a hard and cruel fate
\non a far and distant shore
\ntheir tunics faded green and blue
\npoor shelter from this cold
\nthe memories made yet raw and new
\nat the calling of the roll<\/p>\n

The heads are bowed in silence now
\nat the tolling of the hour
\nThe first few falling flakes of snow
\ndrift gently on the flowers
\nall piled and stacked against the stones
\npetals fluttering in the air
\nThe eyes that stare down through the years
\nat the one no longer there<\/p>\n

The taste of lost and wasted years
\nso bitter on the tongue
\nwhite breath in clouds in the autumn cold
\nFail chest with medals hung
\nin battle ribbons red and gold
\nin the pale November sun
\nthe hands and faces grown so old
\nwhile the heart stays ever young<\/p>\n

For the glorious few are the fewer here
\nthe old soldiers from the square
\nthe wind blows hard and shakes the leaves
\nand stirs the white thin hair
\nof these fading brave and fragile souls
\nas the bugler plays “Last Post”
\nthe snow falls thick and faster still
\nand turns them white as ghosts<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nThese Broken Hills <\/strong><\/p>\n

Twenty years ago today
\nI left my town, I ran away
\nNothing left to do or say
\nBut pack it up and go
\nThe winter sun was cold and bright
\nI nailed the doors and windows tight
\nAnd with a cigarette set that boat alight
\nAnd burned down all my past<\/p>\n

I drifted through these western towns
\nNo kind of work there to be found
\nJust men like me who stand around
\nWith their hands shoved in their jeans
\nAnd the stories spread from time to time
\n“They’re hiring further on down the line
\nSome burnt out mill or run down mine if you dare to go below”<\/p>\n

But the jobs were rumours or plain lies
\nOr the mines closed when men died
\nOr sickened from the fumes and the dyes
\nAnd the poisons in the air
\nNo more to stand in line
\nAshamed to beg for what was mine
\nListening to some lawyers lying
\nAbout how no one’s to blame<\/p>\n

Like broken dreams these broken hills
\nThese broken men bereft of will
\nWith haunted eyes and time to kill
\nIn the barroom’s neon glow
\nNight slams a fist down on this day
\nThe dancers on the floor all sway
\nLaughter harsh as an asses’ bray
\nOr the calling of a crow<\/p>\n

So come on now and fill my glass
\nHelp these empty hours pass
\nI’m sick I’m empty I’m dry as ash
\nFill it up, come on, let’s go<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago today
\nI left my town and ran away
\nLooking for that brighter day
\nAnd the dreams that never came<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nStormfront<\/strong><\/p>\n

As silent as the voice of God
\nthese empty barren hills
\nthey hover above the dry plain
\nthey shimmer in the distance
\nI feel a sudden chill
\nThe ground is dry and cracked like an old mans skin
\nstretched across the plain
\nLightning flickering across the thunderhead
\nEmpty promises of rain<\/p>\n

Some kind of stormfront on the move tonight
\nFeel the tension in the air
\nDust devils dance on the side of the highway
\nLeaves and garbage everywhere
\nMothers call their kids from the door
\n“C’mon get inside, shut the windows, lock them tight”
\nThe sun has burned its bridges
\nplunged into the mountains in a sea of steam
\nand poison light<\/p>\n

I hear thunder bumping boxcars in the valley
\nthe wind is laughing up my sleeve
\nthe cars have turned their headlights on
\nIt’s way past time– I should be gone<\/p>\n

We’ve turned our towns into a filthy joke
\nlike a theme park built for swine
\nWe bulldoze farms, fields turn them into strip malls
\nNobody seems to mind
\nWho elected these cheap hustlers anyway?
\nThis worthless pack of pimps and whores
\nThe developers come smiling with their pockets jingling full of change
\nWe get down on all fours<\/p>\n

And I don’t want your Black Hills gold
\nNot at any price
\nwe built a trail of tears and broken trees through here
\nthen swarmed the earth like lice
\nTownhouses, casinos and trailer parks
\nCheap neon light up the falling night
\nI saw the Four Horsemen ride through here about an hour ago
\nThey were sickened at the sight<\/p>\n

These highway signs are full of bullet holes
\nBurnt rubber cross the road
\nSomeone’s angry about something somewhere here
\nThey’re just waiting to unload
\nWe’re putting bombs in buildings
\nBombs in letters, bombs in trucks
\nWe’re drowning kids in the backs of cars
\nWe’re dressing killers in Armani suits
\nWe turn them into TV stars
\nWe become a race of leering voyeurs
\nWe’re big on progress sex and death
\nSomething evil is lurking in the darkness here with me
\nand I can smell its stinking breath
\nIt’s in the blankness of our children’s stares
\nIt’s in a courtroom in a suit
\nIt’s in the hand that holds gun that made these bullet holes
\nIt’s a secret pocket filled with loot<\/p>\n

It’s the soft white faces
\nof these soft white men
\nwith their soft white grasping hand
\nwho laugh and sneer at those who have to stand and wait in line
\nand never got their chance<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nThreshold<\/strong><\/p>\n

First warm day of spring
\nin last year’s sneakers
\nhow they felt upon his feet
\nso light and cool
\nPlaying in the shade beneath the bleachers
\nWaiting, praying for the end of school<\/p>\n

He remembers how the field would smell at twilight
\nwhen the clover hay was sweet and freshly mown
\nbreathing in the perfume and the mystery
\nAll those years ago before the boy was grown<\/p>\n

And the summer sky was high and bright above him
\nand in the evening it would turn a cobalt blue
\nThe stars hung in a net above the forest
\nthe palest summer moon came into view<\/p>\n

His little world was new and freshly minted
\nin colours bright of gold and blue and green
\nand he listened as the evening breezes hinted
\nof a world beyond that he had never seen<\/p>\n

He was standing on the threshold of a mystery
\nwaiting for his whole life to begin
\nThe world was out there with its motor running
\nHe had but to find the door and climb on in<\/p>\n

And so the young man the he grew to be was restless
\nthe road was calling out there in the night
\nShining in the darkness leading somewhere
\nsomewhere anywhere
\nwould be alright<\/p>\n

But as the years wore on the man became weary
\nand the road that once beckoned at his door
\nwas just another door he’d seen sometime
\nthe towns were all just towns he’d seen before<\/p>\n

and the wonder and the mystery dimmed and tarnished
\nDays were filled with whiskey, smoke and din
\nNo memory now of silence or of sweetness
\nNo way to retieve it from within<\/p>\n

How his world it seemed to shrink and darken
\nChoices poorly made and chances lost
\nSo the face that stared back from his mirror
\nwas a pale and haunted portrait of the cost<\/p>\n

Of no longer even looking for the mystery
\nwaiting out his days it seemed to him
\ntrying to fill the empty ticking hours
\nno sign or memory of the boy he’d been<\/p>\n

Who’d been standing on the threshold
\nof a mystery
\nTrembling in his eagerness to live
\nSomeone was out there
\nwaiting for him somewhere
\nto accept the love he wanted so to give<\/p>\n

He remembered now the evening that he met her
\nHow the sunlight played upon her hair
\nthe tricks it played around her like a halo
\nhow noone in the room seemed to be there<\/p>\n

How the others disappeared and the music faded
\nHow his breath grew short and how his heart was stirred
\nStirred again with hope and longing
\nHis courage failed
\nHe couldn’t find the words<\/p>\n

But as he talked with her he felt his heart reopen
\nher eyes green as the fields were in his youth
\nHer hair was sweet and warm like fresh cut clover
\nand in her eyes he recognized the truth<\/p>\n

That he was standing on the threshold of a mystery
\nTrembling in his eagerness to live
\nPraying she could somehow see and know him
\nand accept the love he wanted so to give<\/p>\n

And that night beneath the light beneath her stairway
\nthey clung in that first brief and awkward kiss
\nHe reached out in love and hope and hated longing
\nwhat he’d waited for his whole life, had been this<\/p>\n

To be standing in the wonder and mystery
\nAnd that hopeful boy he’d lost so long ago
\nHad returned and should he live a hundred lifetimes
\nThis would be the only love he’d ever know<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nSparrow’s Wing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talk to me
\nTouch my face
\nCan it be
\nWe’ve lost our place
\nListen, closely
\nhear my heart
\nSo long parted yet not apart<\/p>\n

We wait so long
\nYou and I
\nHold me close
\nSo strangely shy
\nReaffirming what we always knew
\nHearts together
\nForever True<\/p>\n

Shadows Fall
\nLights burn low
\nBranches dance outside
\nas the night winds blow
\nand we touch softly
\nlike a sparrow’s wing
\nthis breath moment
\nis everything<\/p>\n

back to top<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preview and Download tracks or the entire album at:\u00a0Bandcamp 1. Cricket Dance 1:16 2. Next Turn of the Wheel 7:49 (lyrics) 3. Under the Summer Moonlight 4:31 (lyrics) 4. All That Is 3:47 (lyrics) 5. Edge of the Earth 3:15 6. 11:11 7:31 (lyrics) 7. These Broken Hills 4:12 (lyrics) 8. Come Againe, Sweete Love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":6,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-44","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7qHGF-I","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27635,"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44\/revisions\/27635"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garnetrogers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}