Modjeska - Nightjars

Oh, Modjeska, though we may never meet

I’ve spent my life curled up at your feet

Your mother and I shared a place, but not a time

And I’m only in town for a while

Season of scales in the year of death

What can you say that I haven’t heard yet?

When I am driving and alone with you

Oh, I am clueless in a world of clues

Oh, mother, mother, in the café window

Counting backwards with her eyes closed

Tilting toward the myth that she knew best:

«A perfect land where she took hr rest»

Longed for a life with a hors and a gun

New dust in her mouth, South of a new sun

Now she watches her own shadow swell

Pacing the boards while the farm goes to hell

So, Modjeska, though I will never know you

Go tell your mother I must be leaving soon

Lay down the heavy gown of the foolish prince’s wife

Live in that shadow for the rest of your life

Loved the city the most when I wasn’t up close, or when falling asleep

And I love you the best when I’m not dispossessed, but it’s not up to me

This refrain was akin to the one that crept in

To the letter I wanted to write —

So I thought about writing all night

And I freeze how I feel until things can be real and not distant

But the strain of the transit defies understanding, now, doesn’t it?

Out of the shapes that I know God can take

Well, my favorite’s the space in between us —

But that’s all I want to discuss

And there is no veil and no railing between us and elsewhere

I can’t see you today, but some nearby someday, you will be here

And the time that we spend between our nows and thens

Will look small as the wink of an eye —

As Modjeska has since testified

I love you, I love you, goodnight