Seven Times

[Intro] [Verse 1] Three years the sky was iron, and the creek beds cracked, the fig trees dropped their leaves and never grew them back. He knelt down on the mountain with his face between his knees, and sent me to the top to look out on the sea. [Chorus] I went up and I looked, and I came back down — not a cloud, not a breath, not a sound. He said, "Go again." He said, "Go again." [Verse 2] By the third climb up, the rocks had cut my sandals through, by the fifth I gave the answer 'fore the sea came into view. And every time I told him, he never raised his head, he never argued with it — just sent me up instead. [Chorus] I went up and I looked, and I came back down — not a cloud, not a breath, not a sound. He said, "Go again." He said, "Go again." [Bridge] The seventh time I climbed it, the sea lay flat and gray, I'd already turned to go when something made me stay — way out where the water meets the sky... a little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand. [Final Chorus] I went up and I looked, and I came back running, with the sky gone black and the whole storm coming. He said, "I know." He said, "I know." [Outro] He'd told the king before I ever climbed, before a single cloud: "I hear the sound of rain."