The Moon That Stayed Behind

Three notes cross the silence
And vanish where you were
I turn to face the morning
But nothing answers there

One turn for the water
One turn for the stone
One turn around the place
That I once called home

Around the absence
Around the name
I follow the circle
That no longer remains

No centre holds me
No distance lets me go
The path is still beneath me
But there is no world below

I count the empty orbit
I count what does not move
I keep the old direction
With nothing left to prove

Three notes cross the silence
Three notes, cold and small

I send them toward the darkness

And hear no world at all

I laid a silver road across
The rivers and the rain
I entered through a thousand rooms
And left through glass again

I touched the roofs at midnight
I rested on the sea
Every sleeping window
Returned a part of me

Moonlight
Borrowed and blue
I was only the sunlight
Coming home to you

I wore the shape you gave me
A crescent, coin or crown
I climbed the walls of evening
And followed daylight down

The fields received my shadow
The harbour held it still
A pale reflection trembled
On every glass and hill

Moonlight
Borrowed and blue
I was only the sunlight
Coming home to you

No ocean lifts to meet me
No window holds my face
The light goes on forever
And finds no resting place

I shine across the silence
On seas that cannot move
A mirror with no image
A word with none to prove

Moonlight
Empty and white
What is a reflection
With no returning light?

Moonlight
Falling alone
I was only the sunlight

Trying to call you home

The black seas kept their ancient names
Though none had known a wave
They slept beneath the turning blue
And took what light it gave

I pulled upon the oceans
I taught the coast to breathe
I raised the silver water
Then drew it underneath

Seas without tides
Names without shore
I pull at the darkness
It answers no more

The harbours crossed above the roofs
The rivers left the land
I felt their weight pass through the dark
Like water through a hand

The ships were locked inside the blue
The bells were drowned in air
I called the seas from where I turned
But no sea answered there

Seas without tides
Names without shore
I pull at the darkness
It answers no more

One wave rises
Another falls through
Four roads close
Where one ran blue

The current bends
The compass lies
The ocean turns
Above my eyes

I pull
I wait
I pull again

No rain
No shore
No living rain

Once I moved the sleeping world
Without a sound or sign
Now all the seas are travelling
Beyond the reach of mine

Seas without tides
Dark without deep
I circle the memory
The waters could not keep

Instrumental — no lyrics.

Position unchanged
Receiver awake
Three notes returning
Across the break

No source identified
No distance shown
The signal entered
Then travelled on

Still here
Still here

Satellite
Companion
Witness
Stone

I learned every season
By circling alone

I carried your weather
Across my white face
I measured your oceans
By distance and phase

Still here
Still here

Transmitter open
Frequency low
I send the old pattern
Where no charts go

City beyond midnight
World dressed in blue
This is the body
That once turned with you

Do you receive me?
No answer appears

Do you remember
The shape of my years?

Still here
Still here

The eastern horizon
Returns only flame
The western horizon
Still carries your name

I have no engine
I follow no road
I keep to the circle
And carry its load

Satellite
Companion
Witness
Stone

I speak to the distance
As though it were home

Receiver awake

Still here

Receiver awake

Still

The eastern dark grew thinner
The western stars turned pale
The Sun returned in silence
Along an empty veil

I watched the rim for oceans
For continents of blue
For one familiar shadow
To divide the daylight through

But Earth did not rise
Earth did not rise

The old observatory
Repeated every chart
The numbers crossed the heavens
Then came apart

The bells rang without movement
The wires carried snow
I leaned into the morning
But no world felt the pull

Earth did not rise
Earth did not rise

I did not look away
I did not name the dark
The light was still behind it
But you were not

I held the empty centre
Until the gold returned
Every crater gathered light
Every silent mountain burned

But Earth did not rise
No ocean filled the sky
No blue world crossed the morning
No shadow answered mine

The night Earth never rose
Did not end with dawn
The Sun climbed over everything

And showed me you were gone

Before the dawn

A silver crack

Keep walking

Only one

A footprint keeps its pressure
Where the traveller left the ground
A ladder holds one final step
Above the dust and sound

The broken glass remembers
Every face it could not keep
The craters hold the falling fire
Long after fires sleep

The craters remember everything
The first light and the last
Nothing leaves the surface
Nothing there is past

Permission to rise

Permission to follow

A house without a country

An ocean without ground

I remember every telescope
That turned its eye on me
Every child who drew my circle
Above a paper sea

I remember all the radios
The voices thin and bright
Every window that reflected me
And closed against the night

The craters remember everything
The signal and the flame
Every hand that pointed upward
Every mouth that gave me name

Midnight city
Moving rooms
Mechanical crows
Transparent moons

The chain beneath
The turning stone
The road beyond
The word called home

No north above
No south below
One road remains
We take it now

Do not look away

Do not look away

The impacts never ended
They only changed their form
A word became a crater
A memory became a storm

The surface split in silence
The buried voices rose
The dark released its archive
Through every wound it knows

The craters remember everything
But memory has no end
It keeps the moment falling
And will not let it land

Everything
Everything

I remember Earth

I remember Earth

I remember

One note entered the static
Then two followed slow
A fourth moved underneath them
From somewhere I could not know

No voice gave a direction
No name appeared in light
Only a small returning sound
Crossed the endless night

Afterglow
I heard you in the afterglow
Not near enough to follow
Not far enough to go

The answer did not say return
It did not say remain
It touched the old receiver
Then disappeared again

For one suspended moment
The empty orbit shone
The dark was still around me
But I was not alone

Afterglow
I heard you in the afterglow
A city, world or echo
I do not need to know

Three notes above me
Four notes below
A road made out of distance
A light without a glow

I will keep the signal
I will keep the line
Send it through the darkness
One more time

Afterglow
I hear you in the afterglow

Send again
Send again

I am listening

Send again

At last the silence opened
Not into word or flame
But into seven notes together
That did not need a name

The first three woke the darkness
The next four crossed below
Together they became the road
No living map could show

I was the pale moon in the glass
The circle in the morning
The absent face above the sea
The light without a warning

I watched the city leave its shore
I watched the rivers rise
I watched the Earth become a roof
And occupy the sky

I am the Moon that stayed behind
Still turning in the dark
I hold the names that travelled on
I keep the final mark

Not every road is made to leave
Not every light must roam
Somewhere must remember
What the travellers called home

The chain ran underneath the streets
It joined the stone to flame
It joined the engine to the feet
It carried every name

I felt it cross the emptiness
A weight without a wall
A thread drawn through the vanished world
Still passing through us all

No throne above
No chain below
Only the road
The planets know

But I will not pursue the road
Or turn my face away
The orbit is no prison now
Because I choose to stay

I am the Moon that stayed behind
Not silent, lost or still
I wake the old machinery
And turn it to my will

Three notes for the waking city
Four descending for the world
Seven lights across the silence
Seven doors that open outward

City of midnight
World of blue
I kept the empty heavens
Waiting here for you

But I am not waiting now
I am keeping what remains
Every sea without its water
Every road without its name

If the city turns its windows
If the Earth should cross the night
They will find the old position
By the measure of my light

I am the Moon that stayed behind
The witness and the sign
No longer only borrowed light

The signal now is mine

Before the dawn
Beyond the world
Across the dark
The seven notes

I do not follow

I remember