The Cedar Shroud

[Intro]
[Verse]
Silas, you're breathing too loud
Hiding behind that cedar shroud
Seventy years of this game
Neither of us is the same
Your lens is cracked at the edge
I’m perched on this limestone ledge
We’ve shared this damp forest floor
Always keeping the score
[Pre-Chorus]
Technicolor feathers in the sun
Counting till the day is done
Waiting for a sign or a sound
Six inches off the ground
[Chorus]
Oh, we traded the parlor for pines
Tracing the flight of the lines
Notebooks filled up with the ghosts
Of the birds that we love the most
Just two old men in the leaves
Wearing our hearts on our sleeves
[Post-Chorus]
Click-clack, the tally goes on
Before the light is all gone
Click-clack, the tally goes on
[Verse]
My typewriter keys are all stuck
You say that I’ve run out of luck
You claim that’s a Warbler in blue
But I know a Finch when I view
Remember how Miller would frown?
When we let the binoculars down
He taught us to look past the wing
To hear what the silences sing
[Hook]
Is it you? Is it me?
Who is lost in the tree?
Is it him? Is it us?
In the thrush and the dust?
[Chorus]
Oh, we traded the parlor for pines
Tracing the flight of the lines
Notebooks filled up with the ghosts
Of the birds that we love the most
Just two old men in the leaves
Wearing our hearts on our sleeves
[Bridge]
The flask has a dent from the fall
I offer it over the wall
He’s gone and the forest is cold
We’re the only ones left to be bold
To remember the way that he spoke
Before the great silence awoke
I miss how he’d whistle the tune
Under a pale morning moon
[Build-up]
The wind starts to rattle the bone
We are never truly alone
The rhythm is picking up pace
I see the old grief on your face
[Verse]
Then white wings split the gray
Thirty years drifted away
The Albatross sails on the wind
Where the sky and the water are thinned
We don't even reach for the pen
We just become children again
No more tallies to keep
Before we both go to sleep
[Chorus]
Oh, we traded the parlor for pines
Tracing the flight of the lines
Notebooks filled up with the ghosts
Of the birds that we love the most
Just two old men in the leaves
Wearing our hearts on our sleeves
[Outro]