Joe Henry - Reverie Strung

Lyrics

I keep wooden boxes like traps strung with wire
In the light of old tires, piled and on fire—
Wearing their smoke like a flower in bloom
Cut like the thread in a pipe fitter’s room;
I dig in the dirt and yank at the root
Of the shadow’s dark vein in a story gone mute,
Till it sings with the blue of a hangman in time,
And I give away what never was mine—
I give away what never was mine

I’ve set a snare for the prey on my tongue—
The mean feral song still yet to be sung:
The one with your name called out in the street
That with or without me will always repeat
Like a coin in the mirrored jukebox machine
Can set a world spinning like cheap gasoline:
Sending up sparks in the air, how they shine,
And I give away what never was mine—
I give away what never was mine

The god of all truth, of darkness and sleep,
Plays like the arc of a lamp and for keeps—
Dancing with fury, heat in both hands
And welds me to you in the place where I stand:
In love with your doubt, deaf to my own,
Awake to the hole in the heart of my bone
As I shake and sing, beating out time,
And I give away what never was mine—
I give away what never was mine