lyrics
Who Cooks for You?
O restless body, O fearsome night
Who awakens, now, to this height?
Inside they’re calling your name
In questions falling from the trees
Our namesake’s same soliloquies
While you were turning your head
Night blew through instead
O wailing boughs here, O winding wind
Snaking through these lifetimes, who’re stretching thin
They’re singing too, in their way
As vague as answers pluck the weeds
In gameless playing, we begin to weave
In nameless, changing needs
Night whispers to you
In the mondegreens of our native tongue
That are spoken in the thicket’s strum
And the crooked branches hollow hum
All are finally named just as they are sung
O dreaming body, O restless night
Who awakens now to this height?
O that dreaming could give flight
In lucid visions leaping at the trees
In trusting you remember to believe
The shadow world that now is dreaming me
Night dances in the leaves
They have a name for this hour
Those who say they see in the dark
Now I’ve brought back these dusty wings for now
And the ones from under grandpa’s bark
Here we’ve lately planted and plucked the vines
The sun had dropped in pieces, the leaves laid in signs
While you read aloud the strangest brew
While I sip the song of violet hue
Here I’ve sunken into the mountain with the dew
Even as the sun is yet consumed
Do you hear an answer in these coos?
Echoing to ask us, “Who cooks for you?”
They have a name for this power
That which was planted in our hands this hour
A language we have heard but never sung
Floating from the branches hung above
O, rest this body, fly this mind
Who’ll awake me now from the flight?
credits
from
Visitors,
released April 14, 2021
Ben Hjertmann: voice, pedal steel guitar
Emmalee Hunnicutt: cello, voice
Music and Lyrics by Ben Hjertmann
license
all rights reserved