Potter's Wheel
From Josh Ritter
Words and music by Josh Ritter
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(Repeat)
I close my eyes and it all returns like the spinning of a potter's wheel
Trying to stay ahead in morning as time came running with us
And she beat us to the finish as we ran through the fields
You were born in the city, I didn't recognise you,
Your beauty unexpected like a flower in the concrete
Some gods far below, in worlds undiscovered
Sent you up through ruined temples to find me on the streets, yeah
I'm an alias of who I am, a counterfeited fake
In a picture I am kneeling like a dying Saint Jerome
Hurling rocks at the demons who had tried to come too near
Til you came in and posessed me, now I feel at home
I remember the time we walked for seven hours
I thought about the people I had known for so long
All the castles I had built out of fine and precious sand
Til you came in like the tide, now I don't care that they are gone
As we floated up the river I translated the verses
That were written on memorials to the ships that had sank
And I thought about the people traded sinking for uncertainty
And drowned because of loneliness before they reached the banks
Of the beach near Barcelona where the young girls cry for Mary
And they bury earthen vessels in the rocks by the sea
I am sending out a bottle with a prayer upon the waves
That you'll find inside my picture and your memory will unfold me
We were talking 'bout a trip that I had taken to the canyons
And you told me 'bout a river that had cut through time
Leaving only the pictures of long-dead sons and daughters
And you told me that their paintings looked a lot like mine
I try and watch myself to see what I am saying
But my heart is on my collar and I'm asking you to take it
I don't want to go back to the way things were before
Before the dawn turns into morning I want you there to break it
And a thousand years from now when our names are just a memory
And poets have recorded what has happened in the past
Lovers loving in the night will find our forms in constellations
Seekers seeking for salvation will find our stories in stained glass
A boy in the city who has never seen the morning
As he's running arm-in-arm with you through the fields
Will be caught unexpected by a flower in the concrete
It will all return again just like a potter's wheel
