Lyrics John J. Audubon - Anathallo

John J. Audubon

Most of us have heard crashing so loud
We hear a constant wave that spins between our temples piercing content with
its sound
We lost the 20,000s several years ago
Gradually we feel it washing blank the range in which we hold the things we know
Put your ear to a hummingbird’s wing
Place the hum against the ring
Listen to its still and violent motion making
Treading water
We’re dense waves
We don’t float
Our stories all just sink below the mess of wake the millions of paddled palms
our cupped hands make (5x)
Overhead the goose flies low, necks curve darted straight as compass needle,
dislocated from his mate
He found her body rafting toward the mouth of the river when she disappeared
with the current underneath the tree trunk bridge
Out toward the mouth
Out with the spilling water
We saw it coming like a spirit soars directed
Gunshot smoke and a sinking thereafter
He fell fast to the ocean while the red painted feathers floated down
John Audubon thought about the wiring as he swam toward the twisted neck and
the broken boat body bobbed
Examining the belly for the bullet’s tiny piercing, he cried, «Oh!»
When a secret fluttered, a migrant hummer unlatched its grip
Overhead his heart sped spooked and we splashed as the gail swung cold and some
fish folded in the crest slap
It lapped at our heads, but we received it like a reprimand
We were too consumed by motion to perceive or understand
John J. Audubon, his gifted replication
Painted with precision, perfect vision like the shot stain
And the whole world swam in deaf anticipation til the goose fell like a shed
shell from which the humming secret sprang