No regrets Cardinal
We just come from such different sets of circumstance
I’m up all night in the studio lights
And you’re up early in the orchard’s advance
You’ll be filling up the birdfeeder’s pail
While the sun is just ascending
And I’ll be getting home with my ribboned reel-to-reel
As the city keeps pretending
There’s no comprehending
Just how close to the bone and the wing and the eye
And the throat you can get
And still feel so alone
And still feel related
Like markers on some weathered map relay
You’re not a hit-and-run flier no no
Drifting away
You just picked up a cardinal
A traveler of scarlet on the thin wire of the evening
We saw a farmhouse burning down
Out past the county line under a black unfriendly sky
We rolled the window down and watched that orange bloom
Till neon pulled us into a roadhouse light
Where a honky-tonk band was playing
Locals were stomping and spinning on the floor
And the next thing I know
That cardinal’s at my door
He settles on my windowsill and he won’t take no
He lifts me from my corner and draws me slow
We sway beneath the jukebox glow
Now he’s got a life at home
He’s got another heartbeat down the hall
He seems to want me anyway
Why’d you have to sing so loud
And lead me on that way
You just picked up a cardinal
A traveler of scarlet on the thin wire of the evening
I saw a cardinal flash like a coin
On the back road to Baljennie near my old hometown
He darted through the barley’s whisker tops
Chasing some small bright prize down
And a red-tailed hawk was circling above him
The cardinal flicked and flirted with the wind
He had the same quick glance the same small daring eyes
Hidden beneath a coat of common things
Privately peeking into public rooms
And slipping through the keyholes of numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds
Take quick lovers and swallow powders to get them through the play
No regrets Cardinal
I just keep drifting off some ways
You just picked up a cardinal
A traveler of scarlet on the thin wire of the evening
Cardinal’s at the coffee shop
Staring a hole in his cinnamon roll
He lifts my scent on his bright little beak
While he’s watching the barista’s hands unfold
He’s too far from high tide and cedar pines
From mares and mountains and the wide salt air
And the hum of air-conditioned towers
And the carbon ribbon of the highway’s snare
It’s spelling it out so clear
Either he’s going to perch and stay
Or fold his wings and disappear
I tried to fly away myself
To run from all the small loud claims inside my chest
And from this fire
He left burning in this weathered nest
In this hitcher
In this messenger
Of a flash of red on the telephone line
Of the cardinal on the thin wire of the evening
