The Promised Bride

Octuneber day 6, a telling of the story of the promised bride from the silt verses Lyrics: A woman comes down to the water’s edge Down to the river comes she Says “There’s no where so lonesome as the river’s edge, And no woman more lonesome than me And back in her home waits a long white veil There lays her wedding dress The promised bride comes wild eyed Down to the river’s edge A woman hopes by the waters edge That her end might come to set her free The woman look o’er the river’s edge And into dark water she weeps Oh sing of flesh and silt The tide rises as it will The woman peers past the water’s brim Down Into the river stares she Down into the garden of the trawlerman There at the bottom stands he And there in the garden turns the trawlerman To show her the first face that speaks, “My dear, my dear” asks the trawlerman Why have you come here to weep? And the woman who stands at the water’s edge Tells him the cause of her pain “Tomorrow, the day of going forth, Tomorrow is my wedding day” “But I cannot fit into this life they’ve made This thing I just cannot be. Bound in the shape of this path that’s been laid Out by my family” Oh Sing of flesh and silt The tide rises as it will He listens well, with his second face And then again he turns to speak “Come down in the river be made again, And this thing you shall never be” “For flesh is soft as silt and mud And my currents strong and kind. Come down in river, be made again Into something that they cannot bind” The bride she says “I am afraid I have seen what comes in on your tides You will make a horror of me A thing that I cannot abide” Oh sing of flesh and silt The tide rises as it will The trawlerman laughs “will your flesh not break? Your hands crack? Your lungs burn? Will they not make a horror of you In the life they bid you return?” “For god or for man a vessel I’ll be, Can there be no other path?” “A vessel you are, and a vessel you’ll be” So said the Trawlerman To the garden comes, the promised bride Grasping his outstretched hand And as she sinks with one face Smiles the trawlerman Oh sing of flesh and silt The tide rises as it will A bridegroom at the altar waits A bridegroom waits alone For his promised bride to come There to the chapel of stone And as the moments drop like flies The groom begins to fear He shall not see his promised bride He hopes to hold so dear “They’ve played a trick” the bridegroom thinks “A fool they’ve made of me” But then the first of his wedding guests In the distance he does see Oh sing of flesh and silt The tides rises as it will The angels march upon him then Weeping rivers of silt Bodies wrapped in mottled shells Upon legs as high as stilts Then they part for the promised bride And the bridegroom he does see His promised bride, with pinchers bright A creature from the deep The water and silt come to meet him then As his brides claw pierces bone He falls and thus the river Makes of his lungs a home Oh sing of flesh and silt The tide rises as it will An angel comes down to the water’s edge Down to the river comes she An angel remade in the currents grip In the currents remade was she