Winter / Inner Sun - Echoes of Thoreau IV

[VERSE 1] Winter enters first in hush Before the snow it steals the sound it dims the dye it slows the swift The trees speak short The roads think slow The lake folds back into itself Men name it death Yet nature often only sleeps [VERSE 2] One dawn I watched the lake grow hard The water that wore the wind yesterday Now lay still like glass gone mute The sky stood over it Yet nothing passed within Its depth remained But hidden deep Then I knew Silence is not always void Sometimes it is life Guarding life [CHORUS] What is frozen is not finished What falls quiet is not gone Some hearts keep winter Till thaw is time Keep your coal Keep your flame Even the longest night Must kneel to dawn [VERSE 3] The human heart has seasons too A weather comes Its inward river slows Joy lowers voice Words freeze on lips Hope on the panes turns pale with mist Those passing by may say It ends Yet many hearts Are only wintering [VERSE 4] What freezes waits It does not die They judge too fast who judge first hush A friend grows still They call him lost A face cannot smile They bury its joy A weary people bend They name the spirit gone Yet life works deepest Out of sight A seed below the soil Lies still Not empty [CHORUS] What is frozen is not finished What falls quiet is not gone Some hearts keep winter Till thaw is time Keep your coal Keep your flame Even the longest night Must kneel to dawn [VERSE 5] I love to walk in winter woods When leaves let go All shapes speak plain Summer shade conceals too much Bare branches bear the truth So too a man After loss Sees himself clear What left his hand Teaches what stayed [VERSE 6] My footprints marked the snow behind And there I thought A man learns most Not under warm days But under hard Comfort hides character Cold uncrowns show And what remains Endurance Patience Need made true [VERSE 7] I reached my cabin Lit the fire A little flame remade the room Outside the winter stood unchanged Inside Another season stirred Then I knew You cannot always change the weather But you may wake A weather within [BRIDGE] This fire is seldom born of grand things Sometimes one sentence Sometimes one greeting Sometimes light laid across a morning pane Sometimes a song long lost returns Sometimes for nothing But the wish To begin again [VERSE 8] Many seek the sun Only in the sky Yet some days It rises inward First a thread of warmth Then a knot undone Then shoulders fall Then in the chest a chamber shines At last a man looks on For the first time in many days [VERSE 9] I knew warm rooms And winter hearts Here wood was scarce Yet spirit did not shake For warmth is not from fire alone It comes from hope From meaning From not lying to oneself [VERSE 10] At dusk the sky hangs low with snow A man then weighs his poverty Most count by coin Yet deepest lack Is lack of heed He who sees no wonder pass Is poor in halls He who cannot read the frost Or hear the wind wheel west Or sense the grief in a silent face May own much And live but little [VERSE 11] But one who hears the reeds sing low Is rich in a cabin For wealth lives partly Not in hand But in how we see When eyes learn sight The world grows wide When ears learn hearing Loneliness bears music [FINAL VERSE] Winter’s fairest promise Is spring Each bitter dawn Hides melt within Each endless night Is debtor to morn Men despair When season is mistaken for fate Yet seasons pass And you pass through If somewhere now in you lies ice Do not strike it with an axe Do not scorn it Do not name it dead Give it light Give it time Give it hush Some waters open Only at their hour At night the lake looks black Yet water stays Stars strike it And break in flame The world is cold perhaps But never wholly cold A man is tired perhaps But never wholly done If one spark lives in you Winter has not won [OUTRO] What is frozen Is not finished