Red Cow - MeWithoutYou

Before the Red Sea flood

Beneath a cornhusk dawn

We bid the Elkhorn run

To a locomotive psalm

Until the pale horse comes

Along a rail withdrawn

Clanging loudward on

Clanging loudward on

We bid the Elkhorn run

Until the red cow comes

I was a steadfast son

With thoughts and hooves divided

And on the arid ground

Of thirsty Zion's hill

Cold waters tumbled down

Where the staff of Moses fell

What Pharaoh spell

What picture holds us now

Behold the snake of brass

The wind was blowing backwards

Behold a golden calf

Blighted leaves of Law

Oh for the land we knew

Before the frogs withdrew

In the fragrant pomegranate blooms

Where the tender locust flew

Behind the milk-white tombs

Behind the milk-tank cars

We passed the North Platte yard

On silver tracks unguarded

Out past the sambar herds

Out to the outcast birds

In the rust of open wagons Lo

The Blessed Virgin's likeness

We watched the green figs fall

From the Nebraska sky

How much were even passive things

Responsive to our watchful eye

And let there be no doubt

So many figs and pictures hold us

In the wells of livestock vans

With shells and sidewalk sands

Iron mixed with oxygen

As per the laws of chemistry and chance

A shape was roughly human

It was only roughly human

Apparition eyes apparition eyes

Knock apparition knock eyes apparition eyes

Was he a violent man

Well he had his genocidal moments

Or penned by fiction's hand

To whom could that phrase not apply

How much are even lifeless sounds

Responsive to our listening ear

What Pharoah now what Paroah now

Or Jew or picture holds us here