Casimir Pulaski Day

It's apparently been too long since I've made a total downer post, so here we have it. This Sufjan Stevens song makes me a total mess. It's just the perfect song about death and loss, and I'm not sure else how to say it. It just has this perfect economy of lyricism that allows you to read between the lines - and it's mostly NOT about the death of the person. Thoughts start in the middle and aren't really completed in several of the stanzas. That's how it just kind of works sometimes, the grieving process, and it's brilliantly captured in this song. It's just... a perfect song. I don't know. I can also definitely appreciate the struggling with faith angle of the song, though I approach it from the opposite perspective from the subject of the song.

Listen here: Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day
or: go to his Bandcamp site and listen to all of the Illinois album, because it's amazing.

Lyrics:

Goldenrod and the 4-H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car to the navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading

Oh, the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael’s house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

Oh, the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh, the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh, the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes