Thanksgiving Prayer

My money melts like sugar in the shower when I don't sing
Like a broken mockingbird that's put in pawn
And traded in for diamond jewelry
That shines but only briefly
Like the golden heart of fall
Where the afternoons went quickly
And your breath floats in the final beams of evening
But I don't need dollars, pounds or pesos to know I am rich
I've got people who allow themselves to love me
And are insane enough to be loved
And it's funny to think
How much time we quietly spend apart
You don't need to be a witness
To have with-ness and I'm with you now, that's certain
Civilize me from the wilderness of constant mercy
Guarding a nursery of light
That drifts inside me like a caravan of floating candles
Trying not to capsize in the night
Listen close to the dark and write down what it says
Like it's words of your own
And dig a hole inside yourself and bury them there
Thanksgiving day is every day I write a song like this
When I get down on all four paws
And drag myself by my own jaws sort of feeling
And a wise woman once told me, no one has a single voice
You're a chorus harmonizing, or opposing voices rising
Or a string of strangers waiting for their turn to speak
So every day just ask yourself, who would you rather be
A conductor, or a cop, or a night watchman
Slowly strolling an asylum?
Civilize me from the wilderness of constant mercy
Cut like a kite string in a storm
Drifts inside me like a caravan of floating candles
Huddled in clusters to keep warm
At the end of the hunt, when you cut what you grow
Will you have what you want?
And feast when fear is fleeced from the sheets of a ghost?
When you open your eyes to the sound of the dawn
Peel a dream off your brain
A film that takes the shape of the surface you dry it on
Like a Thanksgiving prayer you can taste in the air