When I Walk Out Of The Museum

Bm

Bm
When I walk out of the museum
                   G                                   F#m
The wall of sudden light makes me crinkle up my nose
                       G
And standing, coat half on, between marble columns
   A
I sneeze into the wind


[Verse 2]

            Bm
When I walk out of the museum
                    G
I have centuries of dust behind my eyes
  F#m
I hunch a little bit
                    G
From the culminated weight of all these other peoples' ideas
        A
I see a tipped over garbage can blowing in the street


[Verse 3]

            Bm
When I walk out of the museum
                G                                    F#m
I think about a snorkeler surfacing tangled in kelp
            A         G
That is me: writhing, wild attention, glancing around
    A
The huge museum doors behind me slam

And I flinch


[Verse 4]

                      Bm
In all of these brief flashes of momentary clarity
                   G
The emptiness that cuts through is like
  F#m
A bowl beneath the sky
G
Empty, not yet pregnant
A
Fertile, without form
   G
It terrifies me, the raw possibility
      A
And I want to go back inside
                Bm
But when I walk out of the museum
             G
Everything I see seems rippling and alive
     F#m
On a freezing January day

Everything:
    G
The museum
        G
And the garbage
         G
And the internet
        G
And the constellations
    A
All collapse into a heap
    A
And light floods out
          Bm            D
From this compost pile