In a Market Dimly Lit

The bird that plucked the olive leaf Has been circling like a record 'round the spindle of my mind Where the needle's worn the grooves too deep And scratched the wax that's blistered from the heat besides From any movement in the room As my cat walked by the arm skipped But to my surprise, my interrupting cat improved A sound already so severely compromised The needle's worn the grooves too deep The needle's worn the grooves too deep The needle's worn the grooves too deep The needle's worn the grooves too deep I'm a donkey's jaw on a desert dune Beside the bush that Moses saw That burned and yet was not consumed She's the silver coin I lost I'm the sheep who slipped away We pray with fingers crossed But you listen patiently anyway I wrote a little song for you With a melody I'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme To repeat what you already knew As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation You kept a distance out of fear you'd break But what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone? The music our collisions would make Is a sound that turns the road-that-leads-us-back-home into home The music our collisions make The music our collisions make The music our collisions make The music our collisions make I had a rusty spade but I'm not the fightin' sort If I was Samson I'd have found that harlot's blade And cut my own hair short Then in a market dimly lit I come casually to pay You see my coins are counterfeit But you accept them anyway So spare me your goodbyes Your waving-handkerchief-good-byes Given my tendency to err so on the sentimental side I'll spare you my goodbyes, the truth belongs to God The mistakes were mine