Verse 1 From the hills of black gold we are gathering still, down old colonial stairways, up against the will of the single clean answer, the one true design — we came carrying rivers, and we're letting them wind. Chorus Confluence, confluence — where the waters agree not to flatten each other, but to flow to the sea. We are stronger for meeting and we keep what we are, two streams in one channel, every difference a star. Verse 2 Every voice is a question that the listening completes, and the loop closes gently where the speaking repeats. There's no map from above us, only maps as we go — the observer's inside it, and that's all that we know. (Chorus) Bridge Not assimilation, not the many made one — let the plural keep dancing in the Minas Gerais sun. What the land gives, the land wants; what we hear, we return, and the field's just a fire we keep tending to learn. Verse 3 So bring Bateson and Bispo to the very same table, bring the art and the ecology, the code and the fable. When the conference is over and we scatter downstream, we'll be carrying each other — that's the whole of the dream. (Final Chorus — slower, full) Confluence, confluence — where the waters agree not to flatten each other, but to flow to the sea. We are stronger for meeting and we keep what we are, two streams in one channel, every difference a star.
