Fog Numbers lyrics

Birth is the starting point of passion.

Passion is the beginning of death.

How can you turn back from birth?

How can you say no to passion?

How can you bid death hold off?

And if thoughts come and hold you

And if dreams step in and shake your bones

What can you do but take them and make them

more your own?

Of course, a nickel is a nickel,

and a dime is a dime - sure -

we learned that -

why mention it now?

of course, steel is steel;

and a hammer is a hammer;

And a thought, a dream, is more than a name,

a number, a fixed point.

Walk in midnight fog now and say to it: Tell

me your number and I'll tell you mine.

Salute one morning sun falling on a river ribbon

of mist and tell it: My number is such-and-

such - what's yours?

Of what is fog the starting point?

Of what is the red sun the beginning?

Long ago - as now - little men and women knew in

their bones the singing and the aching of

these stumbling questions.

• Artist:Carl Sandburg