I saw a helicopter tonight
Flying low with running lights
Made me think of the ocean
Watery horizon and dying sunlight
Reminded me of a Marine who flew a little too high
Helicopter in dusky skies
With red running lights
You remind me...
Of so many nights.

The hills burned
The blue sky turned dark
As smoke blotted out the sun
Gracing the valley in red dusk
Burning skies
So beautiful tonight
Embers of brush and piñon pine
Nature's destructive light
Raining ash
With gentle might
Dying skies burning bright
Wildfires decimating for new life

Hanging vines
Wrapping around limbs
Gently caressing broken skin
Bringing the body up
To mother's embrace
Holding the bare chest
Soothing its quiver
Dripping moonlight
Over the beating heart
Letting it flow down the roots
Pulsing life stretched in water veins
Hanging vines returning life
To all who ask
The tree of life.

A slip of silver shining in the moonlight
Crescent midnight sun intoxicating dead to life
Molten iron in a mouth full of strife
Hot fires raging inside,
I hear your cry
Anger and fear blinding everything in sight
Brother can you hear me now?
The day is won
There is no more blood to slay
I know you never left the fight
Peace is hard when you've seen the hate in people's eyes
You've been breathing red haze
And now you've forgotten who you are
Brother listen to me now
Take my hand and hold it tight
We'll find sanity's light
I'll rinse the blood stains from your eyes
We're both built for the fight
Let me be by your side
Hold my hand tight
I'll take us down to the river tonight
Where we played and make-believed
My brother I'll join you for this fight
Coming home is a long journey of the night.

I've been alone even in company
Maybe it will always be so
My heartbeat echoes beyond me
Yet it beats alone
Unanswered
Alone I ache
Desperate to share the load
But I do not wish my burden on another
A sacrificial soldier,
Is what my heart makes of me.
How can it weep asking for relief?
When it cannot see it's making a martyr of me

Come back to us,
My son so sweet
A face too young to be taken away.
My daughter,
Drawn away to this careless world
It does not deserve your grace.
My loves,
I am with you in every breath
It will always be this way.
Torn away by petty things and historical mistakes.
I will never send you away,
I wait with warm embrace
Do not leave a folded flag in its place.
Come back to us
We wait,
Every generation a dying race
But a mother always waits.

Three ranges
Running North and South
Miles expressed homeward bound
Jagged peaks
Plummet down
Earth's chest breathing in rise and fall
Easy now
Two valleys
Empty barren lands
One road stretching down
Through the valleys
Where shadows dip
Painting their shrouds
So the sun may not beat down
Three ranges
Two valleys
One road
Summit peaks and empty creeks
The valleys do speak
To all who travel the open ground