Music by Damon Waitkus, Emily Packard, Jason Hoopes, Jordan Glenn, and Evelyn Davis
Lyrics by Damon Waitkus

Lyrics

Dress men in black, women in white,
no jewels or frills,
and stand with us in clerestory light
until your mind stills.
Our altar’s plain, its angles are right,
our backs are straight.
The star of grace burns clean at night
through a narrow gate.

Square your shoulders now:
you are God’s own hunter.
No more will you go
cowering through the day.
Bones of rectitude
pass privately through a public door.

Come crows and thieves, open your hand
and He will fill it,
but you must not talk of owning the land:
you do not till it.
You must not talk of sex or of prayer:
you will be lying.
The politic man, asleep in the square,
is quietly dying.

Square your shoulders now:
you are God’s own hunter.
No more will you go
cowering through the day.
Bones of rectitude
pass privately through a public door.

This is my life. My life. What is the baseness before which death is preferable? I think it is that of the man who has put his hand to the plow and turns back.*

A fingering wind sightlessly reads
December’s last rites,
and candles bolt in windows like weeds
to seed the long nights.
Her breath in clouds, billowing past,
brushes your cheek,
and desire runs, broader than fast
beneath the frozen creek.

Enter from the West
–whispers in the architecture–
no more will you place idols at her door
Eyes upon the work,
clasp hands and stand together to your full height.

(* E. L. Ennis, 1908)

Personnel

Damon Waitkus – lead and backing vocals, acoustic, electric,piccolo and baritone guitars, hammer dulcimer, percussion, tin whistle, keyboards, electric taishogoto, mandolin
Thea Kelley – lead and backing vocals
Emily Packard – violin, viola
Jason Hoopes – bass
Jordan Glenn – drums, percussion
Ivor Holloway – saxophones