Lyrics Lest We Forget (blood) - Esperanza Spalding

Lest We Forget (blood)

Blood is breathing
Fully submerged cells even
In denser places like thighs or nails or secret stomach aches
Blood is humming us
A constant tone accompanying the incessant muscling
Pumping us in out, in out, in out, in out, in out, in out
The vowel of self
Blood is steadying
Lunged pendulums in threads of muted currents
Ferrying air around and round it’s labyrinthian orbit
Through the fleshy underside of this
Our atmospheric sea
Blood is ignited engine here at the core of all creation
With your key to our mystery’s spark
Bursting just beneath the surface
Pushing time lapse blooms of newly aired blood outward
While inward bound
To central brain and each extremity
As different as they are all alike
One fauna all inhaling
All flora’s breath
Lest we forget
Look, this leaf
Veins patterned by fractal giving
Oxygen you carry now within
A cell of blood threaded in
All parts of this body we too will grow to give and be
Blood is
Pulsing vast beyond our vein tips…