This Much Counts as One · Track 31 · middle
Grain
Grain — 64.8 mg — one barleycorn's weight, the root of every troy measure. Volume: IV. WORTH. ANGLE: The whole system rests on a seed. Everything precise is standing on something agricultural. Sing the person or animal inside the unit, never the definition.
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
Look at the jeweler in the window Tweezers in a steady, bloodless hand Plucking a shaving of silver To see exactly where we stand He trusts the little brass cylinder Sleeping in a green velvet dent He trusts the ink in his ledger And the promise of the government But I walk out past the parish line Where the mud pulls at my boots Where the autumn wind is stripping the barley Down to its bitter roots I see the farmer rubbing his thumbs Chaff flying off in the cold And I laugh at the men in the city Balancing their paper and their gold Oh, the whole high world is resting on a seed Every diamond, every dose of morphine that you need You can stamp it in metal, you can carve it in stone You can call it the law of the throne But the scale only balances, steady and blind On a little dried husk that the thresher left behind It had to be drawn from the middle of the ear Plump and heavy, baking in the light Before you had a standard, before you had a rule You had to pray the soil got it right Now the apothecary taps out his powders His fingers know the dosage in the dark He doesn't know his holy ghost Is wearing a muddy mark Because the whole high world is resting on a seed Every diamond, every dose of morphine that you need You can stamp it in metal, you can carve it in stone You can call it the law of the throne But the scale only balances, steady and blind On a little dried husk that the thresher left behind Dust to dust, the good book claims But we skip the working years Where the dirt is the measure of the man And the root of all his gears The jeweler blows a speck of ash From the empty hanging pan We love the polish of the instrument We forget where the weight began The whole high world is resting on a seed Every fortune, every contract, every title, every deed You can stamp it in metal, you can carve it in stone You can call it the law of the throne But the scale only balances, steady and blind... On a little dried husk From the middle of the ear Let the congregation say amen Just a seed in the pan Waiting for the rain again