Lyrics

THE SWAY

*"(Wind is the air in your hair,)
when you stand
on the sand
by the shore.

wind will shake the lattices late at night;
it will make the clouds go by.
anything easy that's hard to do,
it is pretty sure to try:

blow down a pine,
clothes from a line,
tumble a chimney top.
wind is the general sound
you hear around,
that suddenly likes to stop."*

You've acquired the taste
for a guilty hand
for the push and pull
of your body's demand

the sequenced cycles
you like to repeat
the needs of others and yours
you fail to meet

the sway of the tree
against the arrhythmia of life
and occurs to me
in my primitive mind
I have woven these phrases of time
to one cloth
as if the folds of feeling and meaning
are lost...are lost

I mirror the guilt
etched on your face
my touch reminds you
of things needing change

but you held me through
my child's unrest
so how do you expect me
to feel anything less?

the sway of the tree
against the arrhythmia of life
and occurs to me
in my primitive mind
I have woven of phrases of time
to one voice
as if I am deafened to the strains
of all other noise...

* (by Leonard Feeney, "The Golden Treasury of Poetry")