Silver Thread

I was walking on shoes of lead,
Holding my silver thread --

With cardinals all around me
In the pewter trees;
With zeppelins floating slowly
Over the silver seas.

Oh thread, I sang as I said,
The world down below us
Is cold and dead.

The woman at her washtub,
With smoke in her head,
The orphan at the wheel hub,
Into his grave he’ll descend,

And all the stars in my bed –
And all the curtains to mend.

So I sent my silver thread
Into the gray north wind,
And it went whirling, whirling
Wildly, across the houses of tin.

Curling, curling through the smokestacks,
Choking the children who felll asleep
Embracing the wolf pack
That spares all the sheep.

And here I stand in my shoes of lead,
In my lonely citadel above the bay,
Watching the cardinals fly away,
Away into the rages of the day,
Holding my silver thread.