This Much Counts as One · Track 41 · middle

Olympiad

Olympiad — 4 years — the interval, not the games. Volume: V. TIME. ANGLE: The unit is the WAITING, not the event. Four years of ordinary life named after one afternoon. Sing the person or animal inside the unit, never the definition.

No audio yet — generation pending.

Lyrics

The fire goes out in the basin, the festival ends
They carve a name in the limestone and call it an age
But down in the valley the olive tree sleeps and awakens
The rain washes out the chalk on the stage
My bones know the rhythm without looking up at the moon
The tightening muscle, the shift of the light in the room

You measure the era by the race that is run
But all of the waiting—this much counts as one
The frost on the timber, the bread in the ash
The long, heavy silence that follows the flash
A whole turning world in the valley below
Swallowed alive by the length of the throw

I clear the oil and the sweat with the edge of the bronze
A dull green strigil knocking against the clay bowl
The child who was crawling is suddenly tall as my shoulder
While we are just trapped in the span of the scroll
We fold up the seasons and pack them in crates
Just marking the time till they open the gates

You measure the era by the race that is run
But all of the waiting—this much counts as one
The frost on the timber, the bread in the ash
The long, heavy silence that follows the flash
A whole turning world in the valley below
Swallowed alive by the length of the throw

It makes a small thing of a winter
It makes a ghost of the spring
To tie up a block of our living
And name it for only one thing
The wreath dries out on the peg by the door

The fire is lit
And the fire goes out
And I pick up the broom from the floor
We start it again
This much.