Like oil

The homes all look like faces
Yellow windows for eyes
And Christmas lights hanging down like a necklace

Riding on the bus
In my red winter coat
Like a dog on a leash, I am restless

And I remember riding
With my dad to the shop after school
In his white diesel pickup

When all the streets were empty
We were driving around
Listening to yourself or someone like you

And burning like oil
On the top of the sea
Just a thin film of light soon extinguished

It's hard to determine
What I want from what I need
And in these times there's no need to distinguish

Though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death
It seems more like the side of a mountain

And we're building our houses
With our love and with our sweat
Something slowly, all our lives are mounting

And death, where is thy sting?
Thy subtle presence revealed
It dissipates in my mind like a vapor

'Cause now I'm going swimming
Reading books and writing songs
When I'm through with my day's toil and labor

And there's an angel sitting
In the tree outside my room
Through the snow I can make out her figure

And she whispers as I dream
Of the roads up ahead
The ones behind and the ones I can't remember