Lyrics:

Author: Indigo Girls
Album title: Nomads.Indians.Saints

Hammer and a Nail
------ --- - ----
(Emily Saliers)

Clearing webs from the hovel
A blistered hand on the handle of a shovel
I've been digging too deep, I always do.
I see my fate on the surface
I look a lot like Narcissus
A dark aabyss of an emptiness
Standing on the edge of a drowning blue.

I look behind my ears for the green
Even my sweat smells clean
Glare off the white hurts my eyes.
Gotta get out of bed get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands, not just my head
I think myself into jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.

I had a lot of good intentions
Sit around for fifty years and then collect a pension,
Started seeing the road to hell and just where it starts
But my life is more than a vision
The sweetest part is acting after making a decision
I started seeing the whole as a sum of its parts

My life is part of the global life
I'd found myself becoming more immobile
When I'd think a little girl in the world can't do anything.
A distant nation my community
A street person my responsibility
If I have a care in the world I have a gift to bring.

Lyrics reprinted WP/FYC by Trip N. Gregory
Reformatted and extracted to a single lyric file by Doug Henkle