Hejira [Shadows and Light]

[Verse 1]
Traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some café
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away

[Verse 2]
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today

[Verse 3]
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I'm returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed

[Verse 4]
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a bridal girl

[Verse 5]
You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line

[Verse 6]
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen, strains of Benny Goodman
Coming through the snow and the pinewood trees

[Verse 7]
I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones

[Verse 8]
I know no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone

[Verse 9]
Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tribute to finality to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality

[Verse 10]
In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There's the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years

[Verse 11]
We're only particles of change I know I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone

[Verse 12]
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room

[Verse 13]
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some café
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way