Opening chant (wordless) (low, repeated syllable: "ohm-ma, ohm-ma, ohm-ma") Verse 1 I went down to the thornfield at the hour before the light I pressed my face into the soil I said: tell me what I'm like The roots said: you are older than the name you've been assigned The thorns said: you've been gentle at the cost of being alive Chorus Thornfield, thornfield I came to give myself back Thornfield, thornfield I left my name in the black The earth doesn't ask what you were called before The earth only asks what you came here for Verse 2 I pulled the briars from the places where I'd learned to swallow sound I planted something without a name in the hollows I had found The birds don't mourn in language they just open up and cry — I am learning from the thornfield how to grieve without a why Chorus Thornfield, thornfield I came to give myself back Thornfield, thornfield I left my name in the black The earth doesn't ask what you were called before The earth only asks what you came here for Bridge (chanted, layered) What grows in the wound What grows in the wound What grows in the wound place grows wild, grows without permission grows toward no one's light but its own Outro (spoken over fading chant) The thornfield doesn't distinguish between the planted and the wild. It just holds everything that comes to it. (chant returns, fades into earth-sound)
