MewithoutYou - Red Cow lyrics

Before the Red Sea flood
Beneath a cornhusk dawn
We bid the Elkhorn run to a locomotive psalm
Until the pale horse comes
Along a rail withdrawn
Clanging loudward on, clanging loudward on
We bid the Elkhorn run until
The red cow comes i was a steadfast son
With thoughts and hooves divided
And on the arid ground of thirsty Zion’s hill
Cold waters tumbled down where the
Staff of Moses fell

What Pharaoh spell
What picture holds us now?

Behold the snake of brass
The wind was blowing backwards
Behold a golden calf, blighted leaves of Law
O for the land we knew
Before the frogs withdrew
In the fragrant pomegranate blooms where
The tender locust flew

Behind the milk-white tombs
Behind the milk tank cars
We passed the North Platte yard
On silver tracks unguarded
Out past the sambar herds
Out to the outcast birds
In the rust of open wagons
Lo! the Blessed Virgin’s likeness
We watched the green figs fall
From the Nebraska sky
How much were even passive things
Responsive to our watchful eye!

And let there be no doubt: so
Many figs and pictures hold us

In the wells of livestock vans
With shells and garden sands
Iron mixed with oxygen as per the
Laws of chemistry and chance
A shape was roughly human
It was only roughly human
Apparition eyes apparition eyes
Knock Apparition knock eyes apparition eyes

Was he a violent man? Well
He had his genocidal moments
Or penned by fiction’s hand? To whom
Could that phrase not apply?
How much are even lifeless sounds
Responsive to our listening ear!
What Pharoah now, what Paroah now
Or Jew or picture holds us here?