Leaves That Are Green
Perhaps, dear readers, at some point in the future I will share some of my broader exegetical theories about the themes and symbols that St. Paul uses to clue the Elect in to the type of future, destruction, or horror that he relates in his sweet-voiced prophecies. But for now, let us take this more or less on its own.
I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song I’m twenty-two now, but I won’t be for long
Naturally, the surface reading, the fool who does not see the hand of revelation in the words, would say that this is a song that was written at some point in the past and performed now.
But those words are part of the song. They could not have been written both in the past and in the present. Was and is. And won’t be...how long, what is the speaker going to stay this age? Not long.
Why? What explains this strange discrepancy?
Time hurries on And the leaves that are green turn to brown And they wither with the wind And they crumble in your hand
The speaker/singer/author is a god. Once man, now something so much more. Watching the racing of time and the fleeting nature of all things. All the things that he once enjoyed, that once gave him pleasure will turn brown, and wither, and crumble. All but him.
Once my heart was filled with love of a girl I held her close, but she faded in the night Like a poem I meant to write
Once he knew love, once he thought he could connect with other people. Perhaps find an equal to himself. But he forgot the lessons of other immortals, such as Eos and Tithonus. Even if he tried to hold her close, outside the river of time, she was not like him. She faded. A poem he meant to write is a poem that never was. In his jealous attempt to rescue her from death and keep her for himself, he plucked her like a fish from a river...and unmade her. She never was.
But how did this happen? True to the addled god living outside time that he is, the teller relates the beginning at the end.
I threw a pebble in a brook And watched the ripples run away And they never made a sound
Obviously what we are dealing with is an attempt at time travel or history manipulation gone awry. The divine speaker stepped outside the brook, the flow of time, and threw a pebble into it, thinking, in his hubris, that this would change its course. (Perhaps relating to the woman he later unmade? Love and grief are powerful motivators for madness.)
But the ripples disappeared from his view, and the sound, the part that was to rise ABOVE the river to him, never came. Because his actions had isolated him from Time itself and everyone he’d ever known and everything he’d ever wanted. He is in a timeless hell of his own invention, able to watch history, but not be part of it. Every time he attempts to meddle, through boredom, through compassion, through spite...they wither with the wind and they crumble in your hand. He’s left with nothing but dry, brittle memories and his growing insanity.
Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello Good-bye, Good-bye Good-bye, Good-bye That’s all there is
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
That’s all there is. An endless series of greetings and farewells that mean nothing and say nothing, unheard by anyone but him, that leaves him with nothing but ash.