Where will we go when we’ve left our shore and home? How will we adapt, stretch the skin to match the bone? Set an ugly precedent, accommodate insane Put the earth in a body bag and throw her life away
We leave through the door of the earth and the sea Life from farm and fisherman of plough and earthen key Sea opener all her jewels are there As if we owned them all. What do I care?
Locked up in her glaciers she guards her realm of gold Element of life and thirst quencher old She cooks our food and feeds us And makes the green to shine Can't make steel from lakes of milk or paper from old wine
We change the course of rivers blood To steal the course of gold Strip the forests from the soil all for our hungry soul You who once needed her now you’re not so sure Put her in a body bag and throw her skin and all
Where will we go when we’ve left our shore and home How will we adapt, stretch the skin to match the bone Set an ugly precedent, accommodate insane Put the earth in a body bag and throw her life away
[...]
More precious than my own dear life is what she gave to me Promise of regeneration and infinity Twig, leaf, alders, rust and green The tangle of an oaken head - belonging here
Where will we go when we’ve left our shore and home How will we adapt, stretch the skin to match the bone Set an ugly precedent, accommodate insane Put the earth in a body bag and throw her life away
[‘Decked with dew, dappled with dew Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through Wiry heath packs, flitches of fern And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn’]