When I am writing songs, I sometimes jot down words and phrases which ultimately begin as a form of poetry. In practice, very little of what I write in my little notebooks end up in song form. Sometimes the words lead to no finished "art" of any sort; other times, the words feel more like poetry than song. And that's what happened below. It may end up as a song some day, but for now I'm glad to share some of my words in this poem.
"what heaven is"
when I stop climbing up
the air is thin
my energy evaporated again
and I finally concede
there is no heaven
no heaven I can see
above the tallest trees
no place for me to rest
for imagined eternity
standing on ancient stones
left by fractured mountains
weathered by ten thousand storms
walked on by the largest army ever seen
of our single cell ancestry
and I finally concede
there is no heaven I can see
this is where the dinosaurs used to be
we've inherited the age of human kind
how long? not for long
a blink of God's eye
everything I've been told
was only half true, I eventually find
believing in a good idea
is worshipping a false ideal
heaven and hell are stories of consequence
making sense of night and day experience
every scriptured word a new idea, a new experiment
some held true and others others mythical
the truth of right and wrong may be questionable
one thing isn't a question of altitude
when you truly love
or when you have been loved
you know best what heaven is
When I am writing songs, I sometimes jot down words and phrases which ultimately begin as a form of poetry. In practice, very little of what I write in my little notebooks end up in song form. Sometimes the words lead to no finished "art" of any sort; other times, the words feel more like poetry than song. And that's what happened below. It may end up as a song some day, but for now I'm glad to share some of my words in this poem.
"what heaven is"
when I stop climbing up
the air is thin
my energy evaporated again
and I finally concede
there is no heaven
no heaven I can see
above the tallest trees
no place for me to rest
for imagined eternity
standing on ancient stones
left by fractured mountains
weathered by ten-thousand storms
walked on by the largest army ever seen
of our single-cell ancestry
and I finally concede
there is no heaven I can see
this is where the dinosaurs used to be
we've inherited the age of human kind
how long? not for long
a blink of God's eye
everything I've been told
was only half true, I eventually find
believing in a good idea
is worshiping a false ideal
heaven and hell are stories of consequence
making sense of night and day experience
every scriptured word a new idea, a new experiment
some held true and others mythical
the truth of right and wrong may be questionable
one thing isn't a question of altitude
when you truly love or
when you have been loved
you know best what heaven is
