[Intro]

(A slow, thumping kick drum like a heartbeat, accompanied by a slide guitar whine)

[Verse 1]

The sap has stopped its climb inside the birch

The Sunday bells have left the empty church

I’m a letter that the postman never sent

A broken promise that the silence lent

[Verse 2]

The garden shears are rusting in the weeds

Among the ghosts of unremembered seeds

I found your hairclip in the hallway light

A little plastic scrap of sudden night

[Chorus]

It’s the hollow time between the leaf and snow

Where nothing stays and nothing wants to go

I’m the muddy track where your tires used to spin

A losing game I’m forced to start again

[Chorus]

The marrow in my bones is turning gray

Like the sky that held the ghost of yesterday

It’s a debt the bitter frost will never pay

Just a long and heavy price for being the stay

[Verse 3]

I trimmed my nails until the quick began to bleed

To rid myself of every trace of need

But the root is deep and buried in the clay

And the sun is just a stranger far away

[Bridge]

[Instrumental solo: Slow, haunting harmonica over a droning organ]

The birds have flown to find a kinder heat

While I am pacing out this frozen beat

[Outro]

Grey wood and bone

Left here alone

In the undertone

Where we were known.

(The kick drum stops, leaving only the wind noise)