We wake each morning in a foreign country
We walk the outer edges of our room
I think of you in terms of buried treasure
A jilted bride emerging from a tomb
Oh your shadow is still breathing
The close and holy darkness will unveil
Mother she's not dead she's only sleeping
Green green-clouded swallowtail
I've learned to love the feel of this barbed wire
The skin that separates your heart from mine
It tears the fabric of my ordinary
And rips the cloudy curtain of my sky
Oh your shadow is still breathing
The close and holy darkness will unveil
Mother she's not dead she's only sleeping
Green green-clouded swallowtail
So sing the hallelujah chorus of the drunkard
You're the woman blowing kisses to the jail
And dreaming of a different kind of freedom
The breath of God upon your tattered sail
Oh your shadow is still breathing
All this darkness it will not prevail
Mother she's not dead she's only sleeping
Green green-clouded swallowtail