Lyrics
[Intro]
[Verse 1]
Bring in the harvest, bolt the door,
hush the little ones close to the floor.
There's a white dust riding the evening air,
and the wells run dry where the great cat's there.
We baked our bread and we hid our store,
for the season's coming that we've seen before.
[Pre-Chorus]
Hear the paws fall heavy, hear the dry winds moan,
and the green light burning through the dust it's blown.
[Chorus]
It is the Season of Salt, the Season of Salt,
when the field and the friend turn to pillars of white.
Lay down your winter, lay it at its feet,
or it takes the whole valley by morning light.
It eats, and it eats, and it never is full —
it is the Eater of All, the Season of Salt.
[Verse 2]
It does not hate us, it does not scheme,
it walks like a drought through a starving dream.
Every mouthful it swallows turns dry as bone,
so it hunts and it hungers and it dies alone.
A river won't cool it, a flock won't fill —
the more that it eats, the more it grows ill.
[Bridge]
Old Baylen swore it, his hand on the blade:
this is the one disaster that leaves nothing remade.
The storms bring the spring back, the floods feed the loam —
but where the Salt has settled, no green ever comes home.
You'd pity the beast for the curse that it bears,
if the curse wasn't us, if it wasn't ours.
[Final Chorus]
It is the Season of Salt, the Season of Salt,
when the field and the friend turn to pillars of white.
Lay down your winter, lay it at its feet,
or it takes the whole valley by morning light.
It eats, and it grows, and it never is full —
it is the Eater of All, the Season of Salt.
[Outro]
Sleep, little ones, while the white wind blows,
and pray for the morning the great cat goes.
