I was six or seven at the time - my parents pulled me to the side:
“Bürstner,” they said, “How do we explain; you have something living inside.
No one knows when you will lie down, pushing Baby out onto the ground;
We don’t have a date to look for: ten months, two years - maybe even more.
We know that it’s hard to understand, Bürstner, but you need to know now.
Think always on Baby, eat right; he’s your little life within a life.”
* * *
It would be a lie to say that after fourteen years it all makes sense;
Baby hasn’t come and so I watch the horses, swinging on the fence.
One day I tried
To see if they lied -
To see if there’s really a baby.
Somewhere inside -
Where would it hide?
Stuck a finger up where it might be.
Feeling for bone,
Feelings alone,
Looking for skull inside me.
And what did I find?
What did I find?
I believe now that they tricked me.
It’s only me;
It’s only me;
Alone and set free in my body.
Yet still when I touch
My side in a special
Way there’s this awful feeling.
I cannot help but
Wonder if maybe
I was just bad at looking.
Well, who knows how small
This baby could be,
Or if it’s in there at all.
Think of me when you run, loud and rolling in the hay.
When your roar trembles hoarse, and your breath has gone away,
There’s a God who will hack through fields of wheat and plains of barley
‘Til He’s found you asleep on rugged ground.
He will know you by name and reach inside here to retrieve me
And He’ll find out you’ve turned me into coal.
Are you deaf to my kicks, do you listen when I cry?
Water churns when I swim, how I rumble and I fight.
Do you drink while you have me in your black and rotten tummy?
Do you think that my Father doesn’t know?
I’m awake; can’t you feel me growing taller every evening?
You forget that it’s not just you and me.
In the slow, rolling tide of my little lake inside -
In the dark, bloody light of your center I am blind.
Yet I still see the world so much clearer than you ever could;
It shocks me and fills me with this dread.
When I’m out it will be as if you never really knew me.
You forget who my Father really is.
Stopped at midnight to pet a horse right
Under lamplight on the country road.
Friends and family - they’re all I need.
Jumping fences I do as I please.
Blue trees dance in black white starlight;
Night is when I gallop like a horse.
Losing weight I’m light just like a pine tree;
There is no one happier than me.
Years later in a room in the hospital,
Blue clothes, curtains close, and the gloves are on.
Hands reach in and then all the worry’s gone;
The baby comes out clean.
The baby comes out clean.
The baby comes out clean.
The baby comes out clean.
A huge scene – the door to our suite is broken down:
The family and people I’ve never seen before.
A close ring – people lean in to see me scream and
Somebody yells, “Oh good,
It looks like he’s alive;
My, isn’t our God so good?”
And then the whole room cries:
“A-men,
A-men,
A-men,
A-men.”
about
Written in New York, Fort Wayne, and Paris
Dedicated to Franz Kafka
credits
released September 13, 2013
PJ Sauerteig: vocals, piano, ukulele, acoustic guitar, drums, percussion
Sarah Sauerteig: female vocals
Minali Aggarwal: female vocals
Ned Hollman: trumpet
Annie Rumsey: trombone
Daniel Brothers: French horn
Special Thanks to: Stephan Adamow, Sahil Ansari, Paul, Diane, and Sarah Sauerteig, and Simon Taylor
Written, Recorded, Produced, and Mixed by PJ Sauerteig
*Trumpet part on The Baby Speaks (III) written by Corey Dansereau
Mastered by Sweetwater Sounds, Fort Wayne, Indiana
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