CORMORANT LYRICS

1. Preserved In Ash

Awakened by claps of celestial hands
The mountain, once guardian
Now soars in the wind

Explosion, a call from our Father’s sphere
Unending, surrounding
Reprisal for sins that we prayed would disappear

Cloud bereft of rain

Oblivious to the many signs
A pervasive haze
Always above, as we slept through our lives
The promise of the end of days

By the fire sky we make our way
through burning wind
Bracing ourselves for the impending sight
of our frozen kin

Head to the sea!
On this volatile path
Follow the sun!
Through the cracks in the ash
Carry the weak!
Demonstration of grace
Salvage our souls!
From the tendrils of fate

All for naught
The heavens aflame
Thy will is done
By hubris we fall under sheets of violent rain

Preserved in ash, we lay immortal

Circular passage of time
Augury bestowed upon the blind
Monument to avarice, memorial in stone
Witness to the callowness, alone

2. Sentinel

Epoch perennial
Unending burial
Sentry of the land
A lord with no command
On hallowed ground

A chieftain once revered for his knowledge of the land
Provider turned to prey with a twitch of nature’s hand

A peril unforeseen by the writing in the stars
Similaun as a tomb opens ceremonial scars

The day was rife with possibility
The smell of carrion on the wind
A figure breached the soft tranquility
A copper arrow breached the skin

Death-addled yet demands to fight
the rogue Tyrolean from the North
A smooth release, the killing blow
The world of watchers beckons him home

Time becomes a child’s game
Millennia to stake his claim
And still he has command of sight
Keeper of the rocks and rain

Aeons pass before his eyes
As generations turn to mist
A seer rooted to the clay
Prophesied to preexist
Blighted by command of sight
A nameless witness of the earth
The wisdom of a thousand lives
Relegated to the dirt

“Gods above! Forgive me!
Let them find their own way
and release me to my dreams.”

Aphonic the refrain
And here he will remain
Doyen of the wind and snow and rain

If forever could be drawn
The eternal pantheon
A palette made of rock and blood and bone

A sentence served in ice
A silent sacrifice
Omniscience lost with every new sunrise

Enshrined in land’s expense
A consecrated trance
Devoid of recompense

3. The Devourer

Embalmed, he wakens from his sleep
In the corner of his eye something retreats
Heavy hearted as a feather hits the floor
A betrayal to be punished evermore

Isolated
Passing beyond the living
Toiling through underworlds
Asphyxiating
There was a toll indebted
Through trickery he fled
The scales tilted by bloodshed

In from the cold of night it calls
From dark spires of mold it falls
He begs to the sky to retract this
Servant of the life leaching blackness

Shadows uncast upon the wall
Attach to human form
Satiating The Devourer

Silhouetted figure creeps
Smoke of obsidian she breathes
Trepidation gives his scent away
The stench of avarice betrays her prey
Coercion bestows a garment of distress
Subjugated

Lying paralyzed
As she makes her descent from the ceiling
Glowing eyes piercing
Stripping the plan from his instinct to flee
Cling to failed hope

Judgment waits for him
She’s watching

Destined
Recompense
Imminent
Air turns dark and heavy
Siphons strategy
As she comes

Breathe in thick tar
Suffer
Vacate your rot to fate

Visible pulse in the throat
As jaws fly wide
Ethereal strangling grip
Paralysis
Now in a world without time
Restless, primal will
Won’t keep her hunger at bay
The insidious curse will consume

Every night in the realm of Duat
The scales are leveled in the Halls of Ma’at
No time to commiserate
Eternity paid for treachery

4. Migration

Instinctive pull
Call for expansion
Impulse to seek prosperity
Flee consternation

East over shoulder
The lantern telling lies
Expiring slowly
Kerosene dries
Fear washes over

Mud-caked teeth grind
A smirking, wind-burned face cracks frown lines
Chased by the fury of the dust cloud
Spurs dive, hooves fly

“Lex Sempronia Agraria.
We migrate to find it.”

Expansion manifesting
Claiming their destiny
Forge a shining city on the hill
Taming the American west

Thundering cacophony
Bleeding trails off the map
Worn heels of Burden Iron beat roads through granite

With clay under the nail
Outstretched fingers point the way
When the earth drinks the sky
Age of fortune is nigh

Blighted by sun and choking dust
Rope splinters line wearied hands
The miles separate wood from lashing
As blisters are rubbed to scars

The more the wind blows, the harder they push
Crack the whip ’til the blue meets the blue
Strong spines of equine will paint the way
As the call of virtue is answered with a roar

The famished caravan
An opportunist meal
Lost half my family attempting to preserve their future

Over the next crest
We’ll smell salt in the air
Succulent wasteland becomes deciduous

Green and gold
The fertile soil and sunshine
With God as my witness I claim this as mine

Green and gold
The untouched valley beckons
By the backs of forefathers I claim this as mine

Migrant fighting for his life
Revels in the failing light
Migrant fighting for his life
The wild herd is losing sight
Migrant fighting for his life
Wallows in implicit strife
(Rhetorical tone)
Migrant fighting for his life
Seductive unknown

The mission embellished
Charged “from above”
The promise of virtue
Contrived imperialist lie

The frontier arrogated
Acquisition the final design
The valor confabulated
Irreproachable pioneers

“Lex Sempronia Agraria.
We migrate to find it.”

Bloodshot eyes stare
A thousand miles past sunset
Horns locked with nature, dueling
A conquest of reciprocation

Expansion manifesting
Claiming their destiny
Migration





CORMORANT LYRICS