Laurie Anderson - What if the Sky Froze? lyrics

As a child I had a hobby
Of making colonial newspapers just
Inventing things that happened in colonial
Times, and printing them
And handing them out to the neighbours
I also had a hobby of
Trying to imagine things that
Had never happened in
The history of the world for some reason
This
Was really important to me so I'd go out
Into the woods and make a fort
And roll oak leaves into oak leaf cigarettes
And crawl into the fort and smoke oak leaf
Cigarettes, and think up various
Improbable events for example:
A man is walking along a road, and just
As he looks up into the sky – which
Is filled with dense swirling snow – a
Duck flying above him has a heart attack and
Falls right on top of the man
And kills him things like that

Sometimes these thoughts would
Lead to questions
Like 'is it true that on Mars the cliffs
Are 40 miles high?' Or 'what if everything
Just stopped? The tides and the waves and –
What if the sky froze? What then?'

Say, are you perhaps made of glass?

To live in the gap, between
The moment that is expiring
And the one that is arising luminous and
Empty the real city falling
Through your mind in
Glittering pieces and when you
Close your eyes
What do you see? Nothing now open them