What do you see? said the raven As we stood on the burning sand Him with his pale cold eyes And me with my blistered hands Him with his education And me with my heritage Him with his new-found freedom And me with an empty cage I see a faraway garden in the glare of an afternoon One of the gates lies rusting and covered in poison blooms Listen the sky is calling, and me I am planet-bound God is an empty promise, and I am a ship aground I see cylinder falling in the group of an endless night Cold are the silent engines, forgotten the parasite What is the price of learning? I give you a silver sea One of these early mornings, this prisoner's soul flies free Listen to me, said the raven, and I hope that you will understand Turn from your pointless vision and undo what harm you can There is no guarded secret, but that which is ocean wide Why should the truth confound you, insisting that you reply? Bury the proof of your passing, you must look to the coming side Time is the right direction - the other is suicide Learn from the smallest creature that life gave you eyes to see Give yourself to the future and sacrifice sanity For the sun travels on and the sky spins around And our lives briefly flare and return to the ground But you still look behind and you still won't let go Of what's over and done, and you think that you know What is - is what, as the day becomes the night What is - is what, if you think that you're right, you're wrong And if you think that you're wrong, you're right What is - is what, so accept no fantasy What is - is what, if you think that you're free, you're chained And if you think that you're chained, you're free You are free Carrying on, said the raven, I believe that I would like to know How many deaths you have died defending your faith from those who want to pierce your armour? And sink you beneath the waves, offering false assumptions, delivering pure hate What is - is what, and you ought to take my word What is - is what, if you think you can hear you're deaf And if you're deaf than you must have heard You must have heard