Author: Indigo Girls

Album title: Nomads.Indians.Saints



Hammer and a Nail

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(Emily Saliers)



Clearing webs from the hovel

A blistered hand on the handle of a shovel

I've been digging too deep, I always do.

I see my fate on the surface

I look a lot like Narcissus

A dark aabyss of an emptiness

Standing on the edge of a drowning blue.



I look behind my ears for the green

Even my sweat smells clean

Glare off the white hurts my eyes.

Gotta get out of bed get a hammer and a nail

Learn how to use my hands, not just my head

I think myself into jail

Now I know a refuge never grows

From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose

Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.



I had a lot of good intentions

Sit around for fifty years and then collect a pension,

Started seeing the road to hell and just where it starts

But my life is more than a vision

The sweetest part is acting after making a decision

I started seeing the whole as a sum of its parts



My life is part of the global life

I'd found myself becoming more immobile

When I'd think a little girl in the world can't do anything.

A distant nation my community

A street person my responsibility

If I have a care in the world I have a gift to bring.



Lyrics reprinted WP/FYC by Trip N. Gregory

Reformatted and extracted to a single lyric file by Doug Henkle