"Elster Stares The Desert Down" lyrics
You were staring from the kitchen at the yard after work
Through the window where the owners pulled a tree from the earth
And the dirt stands piled where the earth was disturbed
You could move it toward the fence to fill the garden bed built last spring
Where you never planted anything yet
Dying flowers in the vase on the sill still
Trying to find a pattern in the scatter of leaves
Though you were never really one to have your fortune or a prophecy read
And Elster stares the desert down
30 miles from the center of town
And around him the night falling in like a crown
Do any missing people ever get found?
Do they ever get found?
In the back of the shed
In the things that they left
With the tools on the shelf
There's a box full of gloves
And some seeds in a kit
So you take it all out in your arms to the yard
And you dig
Little holes in all the rows that you made
In the dirt with the spade
Maybe two inches wide
And you kneel on your knees
Go to lay them inside
But you laid down instead
And you slept as if dead for a week
And Elster starts addressing the crowd
In a bunker 30 feet underground
And the sound in the room is like a voice in a tomb
Echoes banging in his memory now
Now will they ever get out?
If there is a last thing I will see before I go, let that thing be
A better me
And I climbed on the pile in the yard in the dream
To see how far into our future I could see
And Elster stares at night at the phone
Catatonic alone but for the hum of the dial tone
Glowing like a ghost in the screen
When I go and I leave here
Do the missing people ever find peace?
If there is a last thing I will see before I wake up, let it be
You in the bed there fast asleep
Softly dreaming of our garden
Trimming roses
Growing older
Getting harder for our knees to bring us
Down to pull the weeds
Seeds start sprouting outward
Blossomed and surrounded you with flowers over night
All your life here at last there was peace
All the vines intertwined in a canopy
Closed in tight around you
On your legs and arms and chest
Deep in the ground and then downward
Where your resurrected self
Will grow from the ground and be found where you'd slept
Every petal and stem
All the promises
Elster stares alone at the screen
Through the window where the owners pulled a tree from the earth
And the dirt stands piled where the earth was disturbed
You could move it toward the fence to fill the garden bed built last spring
Where you never planted anything yet
Dying flowers in the vase on the sill still
Trying to find a pattern in the scatter of leaves
Though you were never really one to have your fortune or a prophecy read
And Elster stares the desert down
30 miles from the center of town
And around him the night falling in like a crown
Do any missing people ever get found?
Do they ever get found?
In the back of the shed
In the things that they left
With the tools on the shelf
There's a box full of gloves
And some seeds in a kit
So you take it all out in your arms to the yard
And you dig
Little holes in all the rows that you made
In the dirt with the spade
Maybe two inches wide
And you kneel on your knees
Go to lay them inside
But you laid down instead
And you slept as if dead for a week
And Elster starts addressing the crowd
In a bunker 30 feet underground
And the sound in the room is like a voice in a tomb
Echoes banging in his memory now
Now will they ever get out?
If there is a last thing I will see before I go, let that thing be
A better me
And I climbed on the pile in the yard in the dream
To see how far into our future I could see
And Elster stares at night at the phone
Catatonic alone but for the hum of the dial tone
Glowing like a ghost in the screen
When I go and I leave here
Do the missing people ever find peace?
If there is a last thing I will see before I wake up, let it be
You in the bed there fast asleep
Softly dreaming of our garden
Trimming roses
Growing older
Getting harder for our knees to bring us
Down to pull the weeds
Seeds start sprouting outward
Blossomed and surrounded you with flowers over night
All your life here at last there was peace
All the vines intertwined in a canopy
Closed in tight around you
On your legs and arms and chest
Deep in the ground and then downward
Where your resurrected self
Will grow from the ground and be found where you'd slept
Every petal and stem
All the promises
Elster stares alone at the screen
