I awoke in the summer
The sun struck the earth
to furnish us with fire
But jealous hands fashioned their cross
to a sword
Brandished their gift as a torch
to burn the light

To the dead we owe only the truth
the human condition
Surveying the space between the nave
I saw my own infernal grave
existential imperfection

We sat scrawling out notes
on scratched oak tombs
Bullets bouncing off stonewall
Saints laid to rest by our forebear

At their children
at the dissidence of despair
This proximal milieu could close the door
To the closeness that keeps us
inside the spaces that we hide
My heart burns cold
as life leaves my daughter's eyes
I am the mother of the dying
the dust, the denouement

How can absence take my father's house?
How can nothing take my daughter's life?

Walk me out from this tomb
If you are the gate could you make a way?
Come down from that cross
Hold out your hands so I can see

"Je suis sorti vivant du four crématoire
Je suis le témoin sacré de l'église
Je suis une mère qui a tout perdu"

This fire burns your name on my lips
This smoke chokes your song on my throat
Now let death lynch my lungs
I offer what's left of this withering tongue
But oh, no exit so bright
as the light that shines behind the Son

I leapt through stained glass saints
to fall to the garden where we first begun