How can I praise you?

Written on a very late train, where I was sitting up overnight and I was high just with the buzz. A couple of the motifs draw on Gael Baudino's wonderful "Gossamer Axe". The tune and the words all came out in a stream of consciousness and unlike my normal efforts where it takes many, many drafts, I don't think I've changed anything about it since.

How can I praise you, my priestess, my lover?
I am no harper,my tunes are but dust.
Bound to the sword I am free to discover
Worship to bring, perfect love, perfect trust.

chorus
    Magic and music and care and carressing
    Make of each moment the language of love
    Laughter and sorrow in every bright blessing
    Music is magic, below and above.

Names we have given to all of your graces:
Maiden, a wise-woman, lover, a wife
Seeing you always as cycles and phases:
Link with the spirit, the wisdom of life.

Bitterness must be to balance the sweetness -
You are the daughter of pleasure and pain
Asking no favours I seek but completeness
Chalice, give meaning to all you contain.

Joy in the worship and praise in the giving
Circles around us with losses and gains
Mysteries joining the dead to the living
You are the life in the new season's grains.


copyright © pithukuf, 1997