Beautiful in its glory, the mask as thin as gossamer
as fragile as the mist rolls in, as vagueness is its glory;
the child leaves the hospital without a mark upon her
but the cipher of her living is the mark she carries in her
and she staggers as though broken, she's the standing-stone forever:
so their quicksilver and cameras could find no trace of dying
while they wonder'd as they wander'd through the mirrors of her hallway
on the mask as thin as gossamer, the mist that we call beauty

The line is long and tenuous that leads from one to zero
it unfurls a curl of smoke that flies away from something burning
that is bent and blown by wind and yet a single arrow flying
like a bird unseen at night that strikes its life against a windshield
in that moment of emergency that ends its own emergency
the rabbit and the rodent sleep relaxed in newborn clemency
while the eyes that follow'd gossamer are spun uncomprehending
on the mask as thin and fragile as the mist that hides the valley

There's a man who built a mansion on the hills above the valley
he believed that from his vantage there was vagueness that was glory
and the child still left the hospital, no mark upon her being
while the doctors stagger'd trying to believe what we were seeing
though their quicksilver and cameras could find no trace of dying
on the mask as thin as gossamer, the mist that we call'd beauty

When beneath it all the singing of a standing-stone forever
of a bird against a windshield that will shake you into being
for a moment of emergency that wasn't an emergency
the time upon the clock you see is not what you are seeing
and the seven stalls for autos and the floodlit beams of being
that parades the man of plenty on his gossamer of owning
and the pillar-trails of smoke that wind their way from one to zero
and the capillary knowledge that you knew before your knowing
and the random consequences that contain the seed of reason
and the cipher of her living that begins to tell a story
and the rabbit and the rodent that were spared by something dying
while eleven of eleventh hour returns as though repeating
on a mask as thin as gossamer, the mirror we call beauty