Inheritance

My youth was cast away like a broken ash tray
Over used and underpaid
Where disillusioned men extinguish the hopes of those more optimistic than them
And there’s a bloodline of generational sin
In need of a transfusion, but where to begin?

We transpose our pessimism into rhetoric and we call it wisdom
And we think we’re safe as the houses that we’ve built around our hearts
Our heads keep looking for an alternative to the monotony
To which we’ve bound ourselves haphazardly in matrimony
We need new verbs to displace the language that we’ve learned
But my tongue can’t seem to formulate
A response that doesn’t somehow relate to
Hope deferred or the wilderness of covenant forgot
Can I remember what I’ve lost?

We hung our harps upon the poplars and wept beside the river bank
In all my technicolour dreams I can’t unseen the things I’ve seen
Amidst captivity our native songs seem foreign thanks
Remind us refugees of our redemptive melody

And a fog descends on the valley of possibility
And I’m left peering into mystery once again
Oh what I wouldn’t give for a little clarity
But foreign currency can’t possibly afford such luxuries, but still
I hear my name on the wind
I taste the salt in the air
Somewhere beyond the unknown deep in the marrow of my bones
Lies an inheritance I cannot explain
A birthright within my veins

But I’m like a sea captain trying to recollect a horizon from his youth
But the water and sky blur indistinguishably at the point of convergence
And truth be told I’ve been adrift on open ocean for so long
I might not recognise the land from which I came

We hung our harps upon the poplars and wept beside the river bank
In all my technicolour dreams I can’t unseen the things I’ve seen
Amidst captivity our native songs seem foreign thanks
Remind us refugees of our redemptive melody
We laid our voices in the dust
Our tongues of fire swallowed up
For all the maps that I have seen I can’t get back to where I’ve been
Amidst uncertainty we’re colonised by fear of the unknown
Grant us the courage and faith to find our way back home

And the branches of this family tree are severed
Dismembered limbs stacked on the backs of each other
We’re awkwardly fumbling with unfamiliar hands
Devoid of the strength required to put us back together
We were once known as lovers
Ablaze with potential now we’re smouldering ash
Have mercy on this restless soul
Delivery me from the obscurity of exile and make me whole

When I close my eyes I dream of mountains that I’ve never climbed
But they’re strangely nostalgic and I think I understand why
Because they were made to be moved
Like hope was made to be fulfilled
Like impossible got stripped from my vocabulary at will
And I think it’s high time we embraced the risk of believing
Because surviving is not the same as living