Middle Cyclone

This Tornado Loves You

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths
But it’s never enough

I want you

Carved your name across three counties
Ground it in with bloody hides
Their broken necks will line the ditch
’til you stop it, stop it
Stop this madness

I want you

I have waited with a glacier’s patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
’til nothing was standing
65 miles wide
Still you are nowhere
Still you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight

Come out to meet me
Run out to meet me
Come in to the light

Climb the boxcars to the engine through the smoke into the sky
Your rails have always outrun mine
So I pick them up and crash them down
In a moment close to now
Cuz I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss
I miss how you’d sigh yourself to sleep

When I raked the springtime across your sheets

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths
But it’s never enough

My love
I’m an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing

This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?
This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?

Neko Case

Driving home I see those flooded fields
How can people not know what beauty this is?
I’ve taken it for granted my whole life
Since the day I was born

Clouds hang on these curves like me
And I kneel to the wheel of the fox confessor
On splendid heels
And he shames me from my seat
And on my guilty feet
I follow him in retreat

What purpose in these deeds
Oh fox confessor please
Who married me to these orphan blues
It’s not for you to know
But for you to weep and wonder
When the death of your civilization precedes you

Will I ever see you again?
Will there be no one above me to put my faith in?
I flooded my sleeves as I drove home again