Song Description

Majestic-sounding ballad crystallizing the questions asked by the world after massive natural disasters

Lyrics

"Aftermath"
© Capers Simmons (ASCAP)

VERSE I
Ten thousand tons of ocean will roll
Like twenty-one guns aimed at ten million souls
Count up the cost, carry the one,
Cross out the loss, the remainder is none.
What have we done?

VERSE II
Ten thousand hands reach for the skies
These palms demand their rations of rice
Hands fill with rain, bellies with air,
Planes fill with grain, they disappear,
But we are still here.

CHORUS
Grief comes in waves, God comes in late.
Are we slaves in chains of fate
That bind the hands of time
Behind our backs?
Run from the coast, fall on the path,
Take a thousand souls, and then subtract:
The arithmetic of ghosts is
The aftermath.

VERSE III
Limits and thresholds already breached
Children and adults laid out on the beach.
Minus their lives, minus their clothes
The gulls get the eyes, does God get the souls?
Does anyone know?

~ CHORUS ~

BRIDGE
Grief comes in fast, God comes in last
To lift it off and take it back,
Unmake the things that break
In the aftermath.
Add up the tears, subtract the pain
One thousand years, or just one day
The arithmetic is God's,
And He has Hell to pay

~ CHORUS ~