The Glitching Grove

(Instrumental Intro: Acoustic guitar picking, layered with soft, skipping vinyl crackle and distant, melodic 8-bit chirps.) (Verse 1) The foxfire glows in hexadecimal A stream of silver, ones and zeroes fall The owl’s cry is a dial tone at dusk And pixel petals carpet the old wall The ancient oaks hold directories deep Where lightning-bugs are cursor-lights that keep A silent watch on pathways made of code A quiet, wild, and glitching abode (Chorus) Oh, sing the songs from the Glitching Grove Where the magic flickers, strives Where the moon is a loading symbol, slow and bright Hung in the datastream night We dance in the gentle error’s hum To a rhythm never quite begun In the Glitching Grove, the old and new are one Beneath the fractured sun (Verse 2) The weaver’s web is lace of fiber glass It catches dreams and fragments of the past A raccoon reads a scroll of ticker-tape His clever paws trace out a new landscape The bard’s guitar has one string, copper-wound The other, light that makes a ringing sound He sings of legends, "404, The Lost" And of the frost that comes as bitmap frost (Chorus) Oh, sing the songs from the Glitching Grove Where the magic flickers, strives Where the moon is a loading symbol, slow and bright Hung in the datastream night We dance in the gentle error’s hum To a rhythm never quite begun In the Glitching Grove, the old and new are one Beneath the fractured sun (Bridge) Sometimes the world will stutter… A deer is made of starlight and of dust And paths repeat like patterns in a rust We breathe it in, we do not feel afraid This is the price and beauty magic made A soft collapse, a beautifully flawed Rewriting of the covenant with God (Instrumental Break: Banjo and synthesizer duet, the synth notes gliding and warping like birdsong through a broken speaker. Gentle, rhythmic distortion percussions.) (Verse 3) So plant your seeds in soil, black as coal And watch them rise as glyphs to touch your soul A harvest of both berry and of byte A taste of chaos, delicate and bright And when your mind feels tangled, overwrought Come seek the peace this singing grove has bought Where every c***h is just a chrysalis For stranger, softer, more enduring bliss (Outro Chorus, fading) Oh, sing the songs… from the Glitching Grove Where the magic flickers… loves Where the moon is a loading symbol, fading now From the datastream’s brow We sleep in the gentle error’s hum Our dreaming and our doing come… undone… In the Glitching Grove, the old and new are… one… (Fade out on the sound of rustling leaves mixed with the quiet, eternal hum of a server farm, and one last, clear chime from a wind chime made of sliced CDs.)