Pacing the Cage ~ Bruce Cockburn

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
~ by Bruce Cockburn, Pacing the Cage 

To anyone out there feeling stuck, Canadian singer and songwriter, Bruce Cockburn, speaks to the darkness. There is a haunting beauty in his lyrics that offer hope even as he watches himself “Pacing the Cage.” Feeling trapped in a world without meaning, endlessly spiraling out of control, the beauty of the song echoes hope that lifts us out of the sadness of the mundane words. There is something joyful just on the edge of this song, just around the corner, just one more time “pacing the cage.”

Read the poem and listen to his performance below.

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Pacing the Cage
~ by Bruce Cockburn

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I’ve proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip’s worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It’s as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you’ll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage

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Bruce Cockburn performs Pacing The Cage on solo tour