Testo And the stone said Jan Garbarek

And the stone said

I was alone and it was night
I had nobody else to turn to
but the voices talking to me from afar
and with endearing words so silent
they told me the secret about who you really are
A million images and words, long since forgotten,
of events that no one ever saw
I hear a whimper as I kneel,
realizing that it's your pain that I feel
"In this house of worship I'm a stone"

And as I wandered through the night
I felt a presence of the past, the future
and the present now
The voices placed me in the minds
of two young lovers,
the husband in the war who's never coming home,
the young girl realizing she's in fact a boy
and the old man recollecting his first toy,
the widow, the rapist, a gold digger, the hero
and at last the voice I heard before:
"In this house of worship I'm a stone"

"But there's blood gushing out
of the cracks and fissures
split me in two I'm hollow inside
You can't make me feel their sorrow
Did you think that the earth could cry?"

I was alone and it was night

"But there's blood..."

In the dark a mist of light
leading down into its bowels
And I walk the spiral staircase
as the mist slowly dissolves

A wooden banister, a bridge
and a vast stone wall up ahead
I cross the bridge and hear the voices
and they're speaking of the dead

"In moments of hallucinated power
You thought that you had us stalled
But ours are tears of liquid fire
watch us cry a river over you"

"To comprehend me,
you can think of this place as my home.
From here I've seen it all,
throughout time I've watched your mistakes..."

"But there's blood..."

Then again,
to comprehend me
you can think of what I have gone through
I've aided dirty hands
when they've stoned defenseless innocents"

"I am every stone on earth,
everything is recorded in me
But I'm not to interfere
Just continue to act as if I'm not here
I don't care for love or hate
And I know there is no such thing as fate
No greater power will punish your mistakes
Your acts are out of your own free will"

"I was here before you
and I'll still be here when you're gone..."