"Backchannels" lyrics

Oh, when you whistle down the wind
When you needle the dark with your mind
When you're firing volleys of words in an arc
When you're snuffing out all that's still alive

And a droplet falls
From the dropper's eye
Blooms like a wave
That slowly overruns all of your days
And slips the caul
From off your eyes
You face alone
A fear that's dragging us all in its wake

And you kill the lights

I know
You're in the river now
And you yield to the water's embrace
And you lie like a stone on the banks, giving out
As it carries off all of our names

I know that sound
I know what it likes
I know it feels
Like all the guns of a battery trained
Right at your eyes

Because it's real
Because it pulls
A thread of slowly unraveling days
Annihilates
Your mother tongue
Your only light

But hold this sound
Follow it all the way

And put down the knife

The night is here
But still is spinning out stars in its wake
And that stubborn light
Pools in your heart
Warm and nacreous, baby
The milk of sighs
And dreams