I was once a wandering pilgrim with some shadow across my soul
Drawn out into the desert all alone.
In some long forgotten valley, such a tale to be told, I beheld
A great pile of human bones.

Against the hum of history's nations and unsung episodes
I gazed upon the shells of bygone men
Such an ivory congregation, so pale in their repose
Left here to never breath again.

What god-forsaken army had surrendered to the sun?
Sweet life is promised, then it's squandered, then it's done.
Do not breathe! Don't let the canyon walls come down
Upon this haunted ground.

The desert stars were scattered like bone-dust in the night
A horned owl called out from a cottonwood.
I wished that I may, Lord I wished like hell I might
Be any place but where I stood.

Do not wonder at the mischief of the moon
As it steals behind a thunderhead
That snuck up much too soon.
Do not run! It is time that we begin.

Then came the wind. 
Lightning split the canyon, rolling thunder split my brain
I shivered by no tremor of my own.
My rapid racing heart became the rattle of the rain
And the rain became the rattling of bones.

That graveyard quaked and quivered like some dream electrified
Paralyzed I watched the scene unfold:
Bone came to bone like lovers reunited
One hundred thousand skeletons made whole.

"Can they breathe?" asked the canyon,
Or the coyote, or the wind,
Or the god that took their lives only to
Give them back again.

And their tendons grew like vines,
Organs pumped within,
New muscles bent their spines,
Hair flowed upon their skin.
They stared in silent wonder just there beyond belief
When a voice from ancient halls cried out
"Breathe!"


Some bones are best forgotten, some bones will be revered
Some stories should be taught, some stories are just weird.
There was such a barren darkness upon the hearts of men...
And then came the wind.