Crystal Creek by Dar Williams Lyrics

You, so fleet and youthful
Must have split a thousand apples
Oh, I watched you as you steadied
First your heart, then your breath

Venturing out you scanned
A thousand blades of grass
And when you drew your bowstring
It was a swift and cordial death

As you stood in the wilderness
Did you feel the silence in the stillness?
That was me
With you in the forest
For you knew the balances
The balances before us
I was guarding Crystal, Crystal Creek

Oh, a tree it's a record, a home of memories
And every bird springs
From an old master's canvas, full in flight
And the pond I go to sparkles in a vast estuary
And those men saw nothing
Staring drunken through their sites

The one who spied me out
As goods to plunder
I had to show the world
That he was not a true hunter

That was me
When he saw me naked
He was interrupting something sacred
I was guarding Crystal, Crystal Creek

And the newsmen circled
Leaving trails of cigarette butts
Machine like, up the hill to Crystal Creek

"James" she said
"Who would do this thing I've seen today
I cannot hold my mic
My hands are shaking, knees are weak"

"They found a man and he was wrapped in a deerskin
Riddled through with boxes
Of his friends' ammunition
Turn the camera off," she said
And that was me
Oh, my noble animals
You must act with reverence
With reverence not like cannibals
I was guarding Crystal, Crystal Creek