[Verse 1] They call me decorated. I call it keeping score: every ribbon on this old green coat was somebody's web before. I didn't buy them, didn't beg them--each was cinched around me tight, and every braid of silver here is one she counts at night. [Chorus] Jump on the touch, boys--never on the thought. The leap has got no second verse. Many a fine one waited to be sure, and the sure ones all are hers. One spring is what you're issued, and it's loaded-- spend it sudden. Spend it all. The ones who saved theirs for a surer moment hang decorated on her wall. [Verse 2] Bean Rows was my first campaign, green as June and twice as proud. I crossed the Hollow rigging where the parlor lamps played loud. I gave the stink-marked strands the road and marched on one fixed star. A near light calls you closer. A far light tells you where you are. The finest scout I ever followed was a warning I could smell. [Verse 3] You'll notice that I march uneven. Notice. I don't mind. One touch across the hind spring, and I left my first behind. I paid the leg and kept the lesson. Now the lesson marches too. Some nights a grass blade brushes me and I'm airborne before I wake. My first decoration is the one that isn't there. Hear the fiddle step around it. [Bridge] Every tune I sawed on legs the silk don't own was doctrine dressed as dancing. I was storing it in bone. Now children whistle marches they don't know they ever learned, and when the first thread brushes them, they leap before they turn. The body keeps a warning after words have left the land. No march can make them deathless. It only gives the legs a chance. [Final Chorus] Jump on the touch, kids--never on the thought. One spring is all you're issued. Spend it sudden. Spend it all. The sure ones hang upon her wall. [Outro] One beat missing. One foot landing. Eleven ribbons. One leg short. And the fiddle carries on.
