The Fool

I play the role of a fool
The townsfolk's fulcrum of ridicule
Oft to appear through prisming beer
To the newly arrived here
Not as I am, but how they prefer

I saw Ruth atop a dun Clydesdale
In a pilgrim's caravan
Queuing at the toll-house now and then
Revealed by a sheet of lightning
My heart stolen in a flash

Morning up, I went to their camp
A cross-eyed juvenile ushered me to the orchard
Where she lay sketching the spires of the college
And bade me welcome, as if we were old friends

Ruth and I were inseparable
Over the course of that haunted spring
Our midnight trysts unquietly twisted
The blade of our bodies in a wound
Made several hundred lifespans ago

At the end of a skull-lined avenue
In the almshouse catacombs
She looked me in the eye, and sadly sighed
"My darling, I don't want this to happen anymore"

Love is old, older than the sun
A dreadful magic, more powerful than evil
Love, love is old, older than the sun
The impossible engine of a hidden world

Down at the wharf, I watched them load
Their frightened animals aboard a waiting fly boat
I hurled my bottle of wine into its foamy wake
And made a promise I could never not break

Love is old, older than the sun
A dreadful magic, more powerful than evil
Love, love is old, older than the sun
Older than the sun, oh-ah-ah-ah
Love, love is old, ah-ah-ah-ah
Love, love is old, ah-ah-ah
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah
Love is old, love is old
Love, love is older, older than the sun