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The Ballad of Christobal Colon

from American Goodbye by Nancy Burke

/

lyrics

The Ballad of Cristobal Colon

Cristobal:
Oh, widow, I must leave you now
He said and closed the door
And went down to the water’s edge
TO scan for new worlds to explore

Oh, widow, I must leave behind
The world that I have known,
And seek the solace of the seas
Said Cristobal Colon.

Philipa:
Oh, who can map this restlessness,
This roiling silence spread,
A rumpled linen continent
Between the four posts of our bed?

Oh, love, don’t doubt the sea is false
Nor that my love is true,
But sure as you embrace the sail,
I will not wait for you.


He grasped the ropes and scanned the restless
Tempests of the sea
And drove them on towards Hispanol
And down toward mutiny

“Oh, my love,” his cry caressed
The fullness of the sail
“Oh, take me to the places where
All bonds are loosed and all maps fail!”

Love is wide and
Shoreless as the black Sargasso Sea
And you can drown within it
As you can in memory.

I know the contours of desire
By that which failed to last,
I know those of the earth by the smooth
Disappearance of your masts.


Oh, who can map this appetite
To reach at any cost
The green shores of the truth
That one can only find what one has lost?

I know the bite of salt and spray,
The tastes of sweat and sand,
But most, I know the earth is round
For I have held it in my hand.

I think of you in morning light
And pray for you at noon,
But at eventide, I lay with him
Whose child now floats within my womb

His sleep is deep and soundless
As the amniotic sea,
His breathing fills and moves me
As the currents do move thee.


‘Twas not the arrows hurled at them,
Nor endless, pelting rains
But the savage fist of mastery that
Brought him homeward bound in chains


Remember these two wat-ry orbs
As unmarked as the seas
You’ll no more grasp the thoughts behind
Than you’ll reach the Antipodes.

credits

from American Goodbye, released December 17, 2018
Nancy Burke, Vocals
Brian Gephart, Sax
Steve Dawson, Everything Else

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Nancy Burke Evanston, Illinois

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