Time, As a Symptom

lyrics as sung on Divers

Time passed hard,
and the task was the hardest thing she'd ever do.
But she forgot,
the moment she saw you.

So it would seem to be true:
when cruel birth debases, we forget.
When cruel death debases,
we believe it erases all the rest
that precedes.

But stand brave, life-liver,
bleeding out your days
in the river of time.
Stand brave:
time moves both ways,

in the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life;
the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life.

The moment of your greatest joy sustains:
not axe nor hammer,
tumor, tremor,
can take it away, and it remains.
It remains.

And it pains me to say, I was wrong.
Love is not a symptom of time.
Time is just a symptom of love

(and of the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life;
the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life).

Hardly seen, hardly felt—
deep down where your fight is waiting,
down 'till the light in your eyes is fading:
joy of life.
Where I know that you can yield, when it comes down to it;
bow like the field when the wind combs through it:
joy of life.
And every little gust that chances through
will dance in the dust of me and you,
with joy-of-life.
And in our perfect secret-keeping:
One ear of corn,
in silent, reaping
joy of life.

Joy! Again, around—a pause, a sound—a song:
a way a lone a last a loved a long.
A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend.
(Areion, Rharian, go free and graze. Amen.)

A shore, a tide, unmoored—a sight, abroad:
A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god).
No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end.
White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend!

White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: trans

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