TIME’S DARK WING

The sky is emptying out

I lie on a blanket of snow

All that I once cared about

The earth, the heart and the home

All stealing away from me now

All feeling escaping me now

And I’m all cried out

A shell of doubt

All the treasures we bring

Gathered under time’s dark wing

All the measures we sing

Counted under time’s dark wing

I’m locked to the earth

And darkness is reeling around

Bread has turned to dirt

And comfort abandons the land

And if I made it home again

Would you even know me then

When I’m all cried out

A shell of doubt

 

Phil Langran

  

THE DISTANCE

I’ll share with you this memory

Of a little lowland child

Whose eyes are full of romance

And the ghost of a smile

 

Whose heart is a keening melody

Whose hope is a vapour trail

Whose wildest dreams could not compete

With the strength of the gale

 

A little southern harbour town

Down on the customs quay

My father’s eyes are waves of sound

Scanning the sea

 

And out along this mountain road

Where the sun goes down too soon

And the sky is a crystal radio

Driven by the moon

 

I’ll share with you my memory

I’ll share my second self

The past that beats inside of me

And the dust on the shelf

 

Phil Langran

 

JESSE’S GONE                                                                                   

I think I hear a young man sing

‘Glory to the Day’

I think I hear a church bell ring

And Jesse’s gone away

 

In Louisiane and Memphis Town

Skies are turning grey

In old Vermont and Montreal

Jesse’s gone away

 

Jesse’s gone, too soon we say

A chilly wind through Bowling Green

And Jesse’s gone away

 

I think I feel a wave of fear

Blowing cross the land

A bitter sun betrays the soul

That would not raise a hand

 

Children dance, children sing

Glory to the day

Sky is red toward New Orleans

And Jesse’s gone away

 

Jesse’s gone, too soon we say

A chilly wind through Bowling Green

And Jesse’s gone away

 

Jesse’s gone, too soon we say

Jesse’s gone, rue the day

Jesse’s gone, too soon we say

A chilly wind through Bowling Green

And Jesse’s gone away

 

Phil Langran 

 

KITTY TYRELL/SKY GATHERING

In a world of rust and bone

A time of dust and stone

What bright island home cares to claim you now

 

Your troubled mind

Your world away

Stepping in line for fear they’ll blame you now

 

Travelling hurt through this

Unravelling world

Nothing is true, nothing is sacred

 

Tomorrow may be

Just a trick of the light

Leaving you lost, naked and wasted

 

Sky gathering time

Hope taking flight

Sea catching the light

Oh my love, my heart

Sky gathering time

Hope taking flight

Sea catching the light

Sky gathering time

 

Traditional/Phil Langran

 

WHOSE ANGEL CHILD

In a year of Decembers,

Between Franklin and Spencer and time

We cast our minds

And we kick through the embers

Remembering all our best lines

Summertide

 

Sifting through the debris of our lives

Trusting to that bright look in your eyes

 

Night could fall like a blessing

A guest that might never arrive

Whose angel child

All the hours believing

This time we were leaving for good

As if we could

 

The leaves of the linden flourish to fall anew

Whispering soft whose angel child are you

 

So in this last breath of evening

We trust to the questioning tide

Whose angel child

 

Phil Langran

 

YOU’VE GOT TO LOVE THIS ROAD

All that wreckage on the highway

All that talk of better days

All the colours of the rainbow

Buried in an unmarked grave

No matter where you go

You got to love this road

 

Rolled and tumbled and jack-knifed

Saw the thunder rumble in

Saw the future getting hijacked

Lived on the edge of giving in

No matter where you go

You got to love this road

 

No more white lines to rely on

Tunnel vision fills my eyes

No hard shoulder left to cry on

Soon be stepping out of time

No matter where you go

You got to love this road

 

Phil Langran

 

IN THE FALL

This road is no redemption

This highway is no home

Though summer’s here and fruit is on the vine

No truth without exception

No well that won’t run dry

And no more buried treasure left to find

 

In the shadow of tomorrow

And a time of grievous love

We’re waiting in the evening for a sign

In wisdom and in sorrow

And a world of push and shove

Looking for another sun to shine

 

Seems to me these days are full of leaving

Seems to me I don’t hear when you call

But even if there’s nothing left of Eden in this world

We’ll cleave to one another in the fall

 

No matter where I wander

No world of wonder calls

To show me how to write the closing line

These days of rolling thunder

These evening shadows fall

This world’s a cruel deceiver after all

 

Phil Langran

 

THE RULE OF THE HEART

Reading old love letters

Waiting for a call

Walking round in circles

And I’m staring down the walls

Nothing so bad

As the rule of the heart

 

Trying to write a love song

Looking for a rhyme

Trying to stay level

When time is on the slide

Nothing so bad

As the rule of the heart

 

How to be so true

How to be so wise

How to save the fool

From the ruins of this life

 

Walking down slow gardens

Wandering this earth

Begging every pardon

For all I might be worth

Nothing so bad

As the rule of the heart

 

Phil Langran

THE LONG HOME

Figuring the distance from the head to the heart

All these ways I’ve been missing you

A little world of difference, a lifetime apart

Out on the way to the long home

 

Secret ways of glory hidden from my sight

All these ways I’ve been missing you

Going on before me into the world of light

Out on the way to the long home

 

Every bedsit poet leaving Montreal

To live inside a song and catch a dying fall

Every love-struck moment every midnight call

I don’t know where I am

I don’t know where at all

 

The first sight of land, the sign of the cross

All these ways I’ve been missing you

I don’t know where I stand but I know I’m at a loss

Out on the way to the long home

 

It’s taken me a lifetime and I still can’t comprehend

The measure of this love, the world that never ends

Looking for a lifeline in the palm of every hand

I’ll never know enough to ever understand

 

Secret ways of glory stay hidden from my sight

All these ways I’ve been missing you

Going on before me into the world of light

Out on the way to the long home

 

Phil Langran

 

TO BE CONTINUED   

 

Shake off the snow that settles

Shake off the threatening thought

Gather yourself by the comforting stove

Shelter yourself from the storm

 

Steel yourself for valediction

Steel yourself for time

Gather yourself for the rise and the fall

Gather yourself for goodbye

 

Shake off the snow that settles

Shake off the threatening thought

Gather yourself by the comforting stove

Shelter yourself from the storm

 

Grace Morton, Jamie MacRae, Phil Langran