Coyote (Part 2)
The light and dark must face each other.
The only way to avoid mistakes is to avoid living.
I gather the bones of the fallen.
I carry it with honor.
I bury them in the ground,
beneath the dirt and the leaves.
The bones become the path.
The howl carries it all through.
I return.
Little one,
I know you are like me.
I am Coyote.
[VERSE 1]
I see the fear that keeps your mouth closed.
I see the questions you do not ask.
I see how you look away first.
Little one inside says:
"I don't know how to say what I feel.
I feel like it's easier for others.
I am still learning to make a meal from scraps.
Am I nothing more than what happened?
Is that all I am?
I take a step forward, then two steps back."
Coyote flicks his tail and says:
"The step forward is the reaching.
The step back is the gathering.
You are gathering yourself.
The tree is marked by fire and frost.
The wind has bent it.
The storm has shaped it.
The tree has stood through the drought.
The tree is the tree.
Everything that came to shape it has passed.
The tree remains."
So do you.
[PRE-CHORUS]
Coyote by the dumpster at dawn,
Looking for scraps.
I hear a cat wail.
I knew what that meant.
The coyote ate today.
(The coyote ate today.)
[CHORUS]
Stumble and keep walking.
Coyote keeps going.
The work is never done.
I lick my wounds in the dark.
Stumble and keep walking.
Coyote keeps going.
(I keep going.)
[VERSE 2]
Little one says:
"I walk and walk and nothing changes.
I keep coming back to the same old places.
I feel I am fading into the background."
Coyote sits on the hill.
He watches me walk in circles.
He says:
"Would you sit with me and just be here?
Listen.
The fall and the rise are the same.
The end and the beginning are the same.
The loss and the finding are the same.
Pay attention to what is happening around you.
Your thoughts are not always true.
The prayer is answered in the howl.
You are lone but not lost.
Loneliness is the ground where you grow.
The hunger returns.
Hunt again.
The trail ends.
Find another."
[CHORUS]
Stumble and keep walking.
Coyote keeps going.
The work is never done.
I lick my wounds in the dark.
Stumble and keep walking.
Coyote keeps going.
(I keep going.)
[BRIDGE]
You will fall apart again.
You will lose yourself again.
You will become the monster you feared.
And then you will come back.
You will find yourself again.
The light and dark must face each other.
[CHORUS]
Stumble and keep walking.
Coyote keeps going.
The work is never done.
I lick my wounds in the dark.
Stumble and keep walking.
Coyote keeps going.
(I keep going.)
[OUTRO]
The howl knows it will fade.
The bone knows it will become dust.
The little one sits on the hill.
She howls.
All that I am,
all that I ever was,
is here in this howl.
(Stumble and keep walking.
I keep going.)
