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The Petals

from The Petals by Al Grierson

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lyrics

THE PETALS

Come with me and be my love and we'll go high above the city
to the mountains where the olden rivers run
and I'll lay for you a table just as fine as I am able there
to eat the golden apples of the sun

And it'll be you and me, honey, at the dawn of all creation
watching God set down the needle in the groove
and we'll both just sit and gaze into the empty face of darkness
till we notice something move
Where the necessity of sin has yet to blossom or begin
though you can feel the heavy purpose in the air
as in the beauty of His grace He comes to look upon your face
and kiss the petals on the flowers in your hair

Come with me and be my love, oh lay me down among the lilies
lay beside me like an autumn afternoon
Lay beside me till I shiver in that place inside the river
where you hide the silver apples of the Moon

And it'll be you and me, honey, at the fall of Rome
and off in China at the building of the wall
and with an unknown soldier who was buried with the king
for running naked with a message down the hall
to tell them Pharaoh's drunken army wasn't even after Moses
they were looking for the answer everywhere
to the riddle of the sphinx; it's not where anybody thinks –
it's in the petals on the flowers in your hair

So come with me and be my lover in the shadow of the furnace
where another holy chamber used to be
and a chilly wind's still blowing there to keep the embers glowing
in the ashes of some other century

And it'll be you and me, honey, at the burning of St. Joan
pulling meaning from a senseless sacrifice
like a pair of lonely pilgrims on our way to find forgiveness
in a place between the fire and the ice
And the streets are all embarrassed at the sound of her confession
and there's incense in the smoke that fills the square
as the smell of holy flesh from Burgundy to Bangladesh
recalls the petals on the flowers in your hair

Then come with me and be my love
and we'll go round and round the riddle
whether God should be a Lady or a Lord
or if a fate not fully flowered was protecting Mr. Howard
or rehearsing in the hands of Robert Ford

And it'll be you and me, honey there in Northfield, Minnesota
where the living ended bloodied up in chains
and as we drag them from the streets
we'll be ashamed to tell the dying
that they maybe should have stuck to robbing trains
And though love is like a river, you can never really break it
you can shape it on the anvil of despair
and is there still a trace of lead there on the fingers of the dead
that pull the petals from the flowers in your hair

Then come with me and be my love,
oh give me hope and give me shelter
lay me down between the lion and the lamb
See me safely through the slaughter,
down beside the peaceful waters there
and love me till I don't know who I am

And it'll be you and me at the apocalypse, honey
as the world goes up in flames
and everybody acts surprised; they got that look there in their eyes
but there's a man been going round just taking names
And it looks like Rhett and Scarlet with the burning of Atlanta
in the background on some old-time movie screen
or like Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton
all wrapped up in each other's arms
while a movie orchestra plays "The Internationale"
and in the background the Bolsheviks are busy taking the city
and they're so wrapped up in each other
they don't even seem to notice
and you gotta wonder – if that's what he was really doing –
how John Reed ever even wrote "Ten Days That Shook the World"

And it's a long way back to 1917

And there ain't no second coming, ain't no comes the revolution
just a rainbow sign dissolving the air
Time was but time shall be no more,
there's no more peace and no more war
and no more petals on the flowers in your hair

Until there's you and me, honey, at another new creation
Watching God set down the needle in the groove

credits

from The Petals, released June 10, 2021

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