The Tears Of Things

There's no start to this story
And I can see no end
To young men hearing voices
Whisper in the wind
I woke up made of marble
A shepherd boy in shock
Michelangelo release me
From a single block
I'm David the giant killer
With heart-shaped eyes
I was naked as a soldier
Far from my mother's cries and

The tears of things
The tears of things
Rising like a flood
The tears of things
The tears of things
I'd cry them if I could

Was it you, Lord, I was listening to?
You didn't say much
You said "Let my fingers form you,
Be fashioned by my touch,
Be open to be broken
As every heart that sings,
No voice and drum can overcome
A symphony of strings"
You said "You'd make of me an instrument
For melody and word"
I wonder as things fall asunder
Was it really you I heard or

The tears of things?
The tears of things
Songs made out of rain
The tears of things
The tears of things
Here we go again

Mussolini came to see me
A shadow by his side
Church bells ring, a vanishing
Then the vanishing denied
Six million voices silenced in just four years
The silent song of Christendom
So loud everybody hears
Before the roar, before the blast
The stench and shame
There's a howling, wailing sound
That screams your name
I'm David not Goliath, I was born in Bethlehem
And there is no us if there is no them
My eyes were burned from all I learned
There were things I can't unsee
In this your holy war
There's nothing holy here for me just

The tears of things
The tears of things
Rising like a flood
The tears of things
The tears of things
I'd cry them if I could

If you put a man into a cage and rattle it enough
A man becomes the kind of rage that cannot be locked up
No, it cannot be locked up
No, it cannot be locked up
Dear God you made us so you wouldn't be alone
Every heart is exiled until a heart gets home
Don't send us back to stone
Don't send us back to stone

I was made for worship before I spoke I sang
Songs of grief, of disbelief
How a woman can love a man
The naked song, the sacred song
That every soldier fears
'Cause when people go around talking to God
It always ends in tears

Yeah, the tears of things
The tears of things
Let the desert be unfrozen
The tears of things
The river sings
Who would choose to be chosen?

River, sea and mountain
Desert, dust and snow
Everybody is my people
Let my people go

Michelangelo's David (1504)
Appearing daily in the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Italy