Joe Henry - Reverie Eyes Out For You

Lyrics

A fence is stretched across my brow
A divided country: then and now,
And you the border guard—
My caravan waved off the track
With dusty miners hid in back,
Theirs faces glowing hard…
Bruised and black and hunkered down,
From sparking fuses underground,
And digging the way through—
To surface on some other side
With time to burn, a past to hide,
And one eye out for you

With letters cut from magazines
I hide my hand and speak between
The truth and what I need—
I lift the face of someone strong,
To mask the shadow growing long
And blur what it concedes…
I’ve found myself out on a range,
Found the mirror staring strange,
Demanding what I knew—
Of tell-tale stripes across my back
The eyes I keep –each blue and black,
And both of them out for you

Now I’ve crossed into some northern town
Where winds rise up and stars come down
And no one knows my name—
I stitch a coat from what I find
And weave a story in my mind
With nothing such as blame…
I scrawl out pages, watch them burn
The jumpy horses nod in turn,
The way I need them to—
Before I run them to the fields
As buildings blaze and dot the hills
Like all eyes out for you