In California

Corrected lyrics and better formatting:

My heart became a drunken runt On the day i sunk in this shunt To tap me clean Of all the wonder And the sorrow I have seen Since I left my home: My home on the old Milk Lake Where the darkness does fall so fast It feels like some kind of mistake (Just like they told you it would; just like the Tulgeywood).

When i came into my land I did not understand: Neither dry rot, nor the burn pile Nor the bark-beetle, nor the dry well, Nor the black bear.

But there is another, who is a little older When I broke my bone, he carried me up from the riverside

To spend my life in spitting distance, of the love that I have known, I must stay here, in an endless eventide.

And if you come and see me you will upset the order. You cannot come and see me, For I set myself apart. But when you come and see me, in California you cross the border of my heart.

Well, I have sown untidy furrows across my soul, but I am still a coward, content to see my garden grow so sweet & full of someone else's flowers. But sometimes I can almost feel the power. Sometimes I am so in love with you (like a little clock that trembles on the edge of the hour, only ever calling out "Cuckoo, cuckoo")

When I called you, you, little one in a bad way, did you love me? Do you spite me? Time will tell if I can be well, and rise to meet you rightly. While, moving across my land, brandishing themselves like a burning branch, advance the tallow-colored, wall-eyed deer, quiet as gondoliers, while I wait all night, for you, in California, watching the fox pick off my goldfish from their sorry, golden state- and I am no longer afraid of anything, save the life that, here, awaits.

I don't belong to anyone. My heart is heavy as an oil drum. I don't want to be alone. My heart is yellow as an ear of corn, and I have torn my soul apart, from pulling artlessly with fool commands. Some nights I just never go to sleep at all, and I stand, shaking in the doorway like a sentinel, all alone, bracing like the bow upon a ship, and fully abandoning any thought of anywhere but home, my home. Sometimes I can almost feel the power. And I do love you. Is it only timing, that has made it such a dark hour, only ever chiming out, "Cuckoo, cuckoo"?

Cu-ckoo, cu-ckoo, koo, ha-a, ha-hour, ha-a, ha-a [x4]

My heart, I wear you down, I know Gotta think straight, Keep a clean plate; keep from wearing down. If I lose my head Just where am I going to lay it?

(For it has half-ruined me, to be hanging around, here, among the Daphne, blooming out the big brown; I am native to it, but I'm overgrown. I am choked my roots on the earth, as rich as roe, here, down in California)