THEORY OF ICE: PART 2: THE LYRICS

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Break Up

I step over
Watery edges

He pulls the canoe
Across the ice

She paddles to the edge to collect candles
For her old ones to melt and then drink

You shoot ducks
While it’s still easy

They gather at the edge
Thinking

They gather in the sky
Rethinking

They swim towards light
Thinking otherwise

Sun hits you from above
You melt from the inside out

Faint ice as membrane
Sprеads sound across skin

I step over
Watery еdges

He pulls the canoe
Across the ice

Aabawe the first warmth of spring
Aabawe a loosening of the mind
To forgive

They gather at the edge
Thinking

They gather in the sky
Rethinking

They swim towards light
Thinking otherwise

They gather at the edge
Thinking

They gather in the sky
Rethinking

They swim towards light
Thinking otherwise

We gathered
In the winter lodge
Formed from earth
And ice

We slowed
Prayed
Sang
Dreamt

Earth below
World above
Waiting things out
But together

The upper parts
Are exiled to the bottom
The lower parts
Deported to the surface

There is euphoric rising
And falling
Orbits of dispossession
And reattachment

Achieving
Maximum density:
39 degrees fahrenheit

You relax
At the surface
Spread apart
Cooler holding warmer

Regular
Repeated
Ordered
Locked

Lake as one mind

They gather at the edge
Thinking

They gather in the sky
Rethinking

They swim towards light
Thinking otherwise

They gather at the edge
Thinking

They gather in the sky
Rethinking

They swim towards light

OK Indicts

[Verse 1]
I saved fallen snow
On my backbone
I saved fallen snow
From the front row
Forsaking tomorrow
Slow burning today
The sky is falling up

[Verse 2]
I saved shards of hope
In my sky-blue coat
I saved drops of light
You paved paradise
I saved your mistakes
Etched them into my skin
The sky is falling up

[Verse 3]
I sang like thunder
Spilled anger like fire
The sky is falling up
Please don’t mourn me
(Please don’t mourn me)

[Chorus]
Skin departing bone
Ice abandons snow
My skin’s departing bone
Pain instead of snow

[Verse 4]
A choir is spilling the morning sun
And the sky is falling up
Archiving blindness in meticulous ways
The sky is falling up

[Verse 5]
Swеating bits of time
Leaking pools of kind
Dissolving bits of spine
Drowning in sublimе

[Chorus]
Skin departing bone
Ice abandons snow
My skin’s departing bone

[Verse 6]
You never saw me and I never called out
The sky is falling up
Foiled by indifference and melted by greed
Please don’t mourn for me
You never saw me and I never called out
The sky is falling up
Foiled by indifference and melted by greed
Please don’t mourn me
Please don’t mourn me
Please don’t mourn me

Viscosity

Calling out, calling in
You’re not fooling me

Tethered to the kinship of disassociated zeros and ones
Shining your crown of neoliberal likes
Yelling the loudest in the empty room

Gathering followers like berries
Feeding fish to insecurity
Sliding into reckless moment after reckless moment

We Witness

Too many holes in your hide
The broken skin of a canoe
The tightening of a mind
Tracks, leading nowhere

At the beach, we build a fire
Sit in our own silence
Peel off blue light
Lie back on frozen waves
Breath in sharp air
Warm into each other
Careful moment
After careful moment

Calling out, calling in
You’re not fooling me

Tethered to the kinship of disassociated zeros and ones
Shining your crown of neoliberal likes
Yelling the loudest in the empty room

We witness

Too many holes in your hide
The broken skin of a canoe
The tightening of a mind
Tracks, leading nowhere

At the beach
We build a fire (We build a fire)
Sit in our own silence (Sit in our own silence)
Peel off blue light (Sit in our silence)
Lie back on frozen waves (At the beach)
Breath in sharp air (We build a fire)
Warm into each other (Sit in our own silence)
Careful moment after careful moment (Sit in our silence)

At the beach (At the beach)
We build a fire (We build a fire)
Sit in our own silence (Sit in our own silence)
Peel off blue light (Sit in our silence)
Lie back on frozen waves (At the beach)
Breath in sharp air (We build a fire)
Warm into each other (Sit in our own silence)
Careful moment after careful moment (Sit in our silence)

At the beach (At the beach)
We build a fire (We build a fire)
Sit in our own silence (Sit in our own silence)
Peel off blue light (Sit in our silence)
Lie back on frozen waves (At the beach)
Breath in sharp air (We build a fire)
Warm into each other (Sit in our own silence )
Careful moment after careful moment

At the beach (At the beach)
We build a fire (We build a fire)
Sit in our own silence (Sit in our own silence)
Peel off blue light (Sit in our silence)
Lie back on frozen waves (At the beach)
Breath in sharp air (We build a fire)
Warm into each other
Careful moment after careful moment

At the beach
We build a fire
Sit in our own silence
Peel off blue light
Lie back on frozen waves
Breath in sharp air
Warm into each other
Careful moment
After careful moment

Surface Tension

And the road only goes one way
And you can’t get lost
The trees drive by
And we carry the river

I ask you four questions
You give me four answers

The ininiwish that live here
The book that changed your life
And the river only goes one way
And you can’t get lost

The akiwenzii that assigned you
The oil rig, it sang Marx
We keep the critic in the back seat
I keep the answers
In the hollow part of me

And the river only goes one way
And you can’t get lost

Thеre are simple stolеn moments
These are simple stolen moments
And we love when we are able

And there are beating wings reminding me if you fly
Forever you can have two summers
And the river only goes one way
And you can’t get lost

I Pity the Country
BY WILLIE DUNN

[Verse 1]
I pity the country, I pity the state
And the mind of a man who thrives on hate
Small are the lives of cheats and of liars
Of bigoted news press fascist town criers

[Verse 2]
Deception annoys me, deception destroys me
The Bill of Rights throws me, jails, they all know me
Frustrated are churchmen, the saving-of-soul men
The tinker, the tailor, the colonial governor

[Verse 3]
They rape and they beat me (I pity the country)
Seeking to draw me (I pity the state, and the mind of a man)
Away from the roundness (Who thrives on hate)
Of this life

[Verse 4]
Silly civil servants, they thrive off my body
Their trip is with power, back-bacon, and welfare
Police, they arrest me, materialists detest me
Pollution, it chokes me, movies, they joke me

[Verse 5]
Politicians exploit me (Politicians exploit me)
City life, it jades me (City life, it jades me)
Hudson’s Bay fleeces me (Hudson’s Bay fleeces me)
Hunting laws freak me (Hunting laws freak me)
Government is stumbling (Government is stumbling)
Revolution is rumbling (Revolution is rumbling)
To be ruled in impunity (To be ruled in impunity)
Is tradition continuity (Is tradition continuity)

[Chorus]
I pity the country, I pity the state
And the mind of a man who thrives on hate
I pity this country

[Chorus]
I pity the country, I pity the state
And the mind of a man who thrives on hate
Small are the lives of cheats and of liars
Of bigoted news press fascist town criers

[Chorus]
I pity the country, I pity the state
And the mind of a man who thrives on hate
I pity the country, I pity the state

Failure of Melting

The frozen sighed and gave up
The lake wrote their letter of resignation

July 15, 30 cubic meters
Just like the Gwich’in always said

I bring you coffee
A blanket, moonlight
I bring you stitches
A feather, three books

The caribou sit measuring emptiness
The fish study giving up
The molecules calculate the effects of hate
You breakdown to a less ordered state

July 15, 30 cubic meters
Just like the Gwich’in always said

The icе breathes and gives in
Thе lake runs out of options
The ice breaths
And there are all kinds of ways
To fail

I bring you coffee
A blanket, moonlight
I bring you stitches
A feather, three books

I bring you coffee
A blanket, moonlight
I bring you stitches
A feather, three books

The Wake

Hello, my friend
I’ve come to see you again
Everything we tried
To grow this year has died
You’ve tripped inside my head
Numb calm, dulled light, cold red

Wearing just the lake
Diminished in the wake
Inside a commune of night
There’s no way to make this right

Acorns and fallen stars
A child that wasn’t ours
Ashes in my eyes crushed fires
And shattered skies

Injured certified
I wish I’d held you when you died
You’ve tripped inside my head
Numb calm, dulled light, cold red

Acorns and fallen stars
A child that wasn’t ours
Ashes in my eyes crushed fires
And shattered skies

Everything we tried
To grow this year has died
Ashes in my eyes crushed fires
And shattered skies

Ashes in my eyes crushed fires
Ashes in my eyes crushed fires
Ashes in my eyes crushed fires
Ashes in my eyes crushed fires

Head of the Lake

In a basement full of plastic flowers
Pierogis, cabbage rolls
At the head of the lake, thinking under accusation
At the mouth of the catastrophic river
Disappearing our kids
At the foot of the nest
Beside trailer hitches, coffee, spoons

We made a circle
And it helped
The smoke did the things we couldn’t
Singing broke open hearts
I hold your hand
Without touching it

We’re in the thinking part of the lake
Faith under accusation
At the mouth of the river
And the spectre of free
At the foot of Animikig
Beside bones of stone and red silver
In a basement full of increasing entropy
Moose ribs, wild rice

(We made a circle)
We made a circle (We made a circle)
And it helped (And it helped)
The smoke did the things we couldn’t (The smoke did the things we could not)
Singing broke open hearts
I hold your hand without touching it (I hold your hand without touching it)
(Without touching it)
(Without touching it)

At the foot of Animikig
Beside bones of stone and red silver
In a basement full of increasing entropy
Moose ribs, wild rice

In realization
We don’t exist without each other
She says: there’s nothing about you
I’m not willing to know

We made a circle (We made a circle)
And it helped (And it helped)
The smoke did the things we couldn’t (The smoke did the things we could not)
Singing broke open hearts
I hold your hand without touching it (I hold your hand without touching it)

We made a circle (We made a circle)
And it helped (And it helped)
The smoke did the things we couldn’t (The smoke did the things we could not)
Singing broke open hearts
I hold your hand without touching it (I hold your hand without touching it)

We made a circle
And it helped
The smoke did the things we couldn’t
Singing broke open hearts
I hold your hand without touching it