orienteering * lyrics

Copyright (c) 2008, Ben Wilson (SOCAN/BMI)

 

well the best intentions
and the greatest of plans
can be the strangest investments
when you can’t turn back
to the green pins marking where you’ve been.

it’s sort-of orienteering.
but that may not have been
a good comparison.

well the best intentions
got me lost in the forest, stumbling
into a quiet little village at 1am.
now I’m drinking at the Good Intent
and thinking somehow reaching the end could’ve been
some enabling movement…

but that may not have been
a good comparison.
semi-itinerant, un-set up
and made a mess of it all.

chalk it up to lack of strength
or inexperience,
with my ropes and figure eight all messed up
to me it’s nothing at all.

every city * lyrics

Copyright (c) 2008, Ben Wilson (SOCAN/BMI)

(note: verse 1 contains an excerpt from Gary Snyder's poem Walking the New York Bedrock -- used with permission)

perched up on a tower
in the heart of the city,
i can feel
the body breathing,

the birds angling,
the buildings swinging,
in the sun-dial
arc of evening.

and every vein’s got to account for something in
this building’s heartbeat, pumping
love to the levels above.

well you know the more I look,
the more I see
the birds come singing back to me.