Willow Logic – Gordon Downie

I have a secret
Tell me no
Please, tell me no
Put it out of your mind, please
If I put it out of my mind
Then will you tell me?

(She was always like that
And even as a kid, secret and apologetic
Quiet like a deer
Moving between the sunshine and uncertainty)

He yells at her up until she goes pale
Then resumes his job as a painter
Painting all the fire hydrants yellow
Within a certain framework

(And she wouldn’t always feel so good all the time
But over the course of the day she’d forget
The dancer in her run amok, she’d forget
And from the forest edge he’d come)

Returning home’s not to be construed
As anything resembling a tender mood
Stay in my orbit though it’s lacking
Certain latitude

(But then it goes late, the been, are
Going of another day is bobbled and caught
And she says nice things to go to sleep
Like Charles Comfort and Mimico Creek)

The nocturnal shh of the saboteur whispering
“There’s nothing counterfeit about the summer”
It took big waves of discipline
To learn they pump the birdsong in

(She was always like that and like now
Watching the swallows gobble tonight’s complement of blood-suckers
Thank Christ she’s trying to be silent
When catching a bug in mid-flight might be easier)

I have a secret
Tell me no
Please, tell me no
Put it out of your mind, please
If I put it out of my mind
Then will you tell me?

(She was always like that
She was always like that)