Tanglewood Tree

Love is a tanglewood tree,
in a bower of green,
in a forest at dawn.
Fair while the mockingbird sings,
but she soon lifts her wings,
and the music is gone.

Young lovers in the tall grass with their hearts open wide
when the red summer poppies bloom
but love is a trackless domain
and the rumor of rain
in the late afternoon

Love is an old root that creeps,
through the meadows of sleep,
when the long shadows cast.
Thin as a vagrant young vine,
it encircles and twines,
and it holds the heart fast.

Catches dreamers in the wildwood with the stars in their eyes
and the moon in their tousled hair.
But love is a light in the sky,
and an unspoken lie,
and a half-whispered prayer.

I'm walkin' down a bone-dry river but the cool mirage runs true
I'm bankin' on the fables of the far, far better things we do
I'm livin' for the day of reck'nin countin' down the hours
I yearn away, I burn away, I turn away the fairest flower of love, 'cause darlin . . .

Love is a garden of thorns, (love's garden of thorns, how it grows)
and a crow in the corn, (black crow in the corn hummin' low)
and the brake growing wild. (brake nettle so pretty and wild)
(and thistles surround the edge of the)
Cold when the summer is spent, (dim dark hour as the sun moves away)
in the jade heart's lament, (lamenting a lost summer day)
for the faith of a child. (who nurtures the faith of a child)
(When nothing remains to cover her eyes?)
My body has a number and my face has a name (my body has a number, maybe my face has a name)
and each day looks the same to me (each hour like each hour before)
but love is a voice on the wind, (this longing is a voice on the wind)
and the wages of sin (she cultivates the wages of sin)
and a tanglewood tree (in a tanglewood tree)