Tonight In Bilbao

I walked the old eroded streets

A million miles now have gone behind me

Walked in the room, soaked up its fumes

Surveyed the faces I am lying to

Gave what I had, I gave my heart

Though I was broken and falling apart

Gave for the memory of a friend

Not for myself and not for them

When I was done I met someone

She came in from the storm so bright and welcome

Her friends came and swept her away

Disappeared like coyotes off on dark high plains

I looked across the river so still

Trying to remember

Where it was last night I laid my head to sleep

Where the empty night hung heavily over

I left Bilbao, went to Madrid

To Barcelona, to Pamplona

Where every ghost unto me known

Haunted me

I flew in over the red clay roofs

And floated through the clouds as they swelled and shook

The bronze-tinted land and sea

And houses rolled in hills like yellowing teeth

When we touched down, opened my eyes to the sun

The dizzying air filled my lungs

And just as soon she'd woken me

My eyes blurry, my mind heavy

I left Milan, I went to Rome

And carried her aroma on to Verona

And all the kindness she had shown

Was only a dream

The flurries danced on cold gray tombs

The frozen lots where ignored souls loomed

As last rays of daylight died

I'm blowing into my hands and clearing my eyes

And as the train pulled away from Cologne

The noise dimmed, once so loudly it had grown

And as the engines burned through the night

I stared off at far away lights

I left Berlin and I came home

To sleepy potions of blue oceans

Where my love so selflessly

Awaited me

I long to feel her light so warm

My thoughts racing to the places

Where her room invitingly

Awaited me

As the ocean brings in its high tide

As the darkness sets upon the beach

As we drive we look out at black cows

Glowing store windows in old gold rush towns

Over the bridge, the city sparkles so bright

Our hungry stomachs smell bread rise

Dim light of television, bedding soft down

And hear the perfect night as foghorns sound