[Intro — female vocal, sparse] The cat is warm upon my lap, the mango green outside; they'll say the green is only mine— here's how the garden died. [Verse 1 — female vocal] The fig was sweet upon her tongue, the river cold as stone, and nothing hung between her hand and all her hand had known. The lion's flank was warm with sun, the thrush's note was high; she knew them as she knew the ache that gathered in her eye. [Verse 2 — low male vocal] Then something rustled in the bough and whispered at her ear: "That warmth is only shaking motes; that song, the trembling air. The apple only turns away the light it will not drink; your nerves supply the red you see— there's no red in the thing." [Serpent's Chorus — low male vocal] I only told her what was true, I only opened eyes: the green was painted on the glass and nothing green outside. She bit, and all the colours ran back up into her head, and what was left beyond the glass was neither warm nor red. [Verse 3 — female vocal] So east of Eden, out of reach, the world turned on unseen: a wheel of dark and silent things where once the leaves were green. She knew it as the blind man knows the cart that breaks his knee: by weight and shove; what made the blow she'd never come to see. [Serpent's Chorus — low male vocal] I only told her what was true, I only opened eyes: the green was painted on the glass and nothing green outside. She bit, and all the colours ran back up into her head, and what was left beyond the glass was neither warm nor red. [Verse 4 — female vocal] Then Bishop Berkeley came to say the gate was always kept: the green is real because it's seen, and God has never slept. So take away the watcher's will, his goodness and his might, his purposes and plans—and still the warmth, the green, the light. [Bridge — female vocal, building] It holds the root beneath the earth, the leaf from every side, the heat that draws the hunting snake, the marks the bees fly by; my green, another creature's grey, my twin's inverted red— the view from everywhere, one weave, no ruler overhead. [Verse 5 — female vocal] So when I turn and see the leaf, there's nothing in between: it's mine the way my ache is mine, and still the tree's own green. The nerves still fire, the threads still cross, the serpent's sums hold strong; he only weighed the weave, and missed the colour all along. [Philosopher's Chorus — female vocal] You told her true about the light, then more than science said: the green was never on the glass— the glass was in your head. She bit, and nothing went away; the juice ran down her chin; the world was there against her teeth as it had always been. [Outro — female vocal] I cannot prove the garden's here; the serpent's world could be— a dark machine behind the glass that looks the same to me. The cat is warm upon my lap, the mango green and near: give me a damn good reason, snake, or I am staying here.
