Battle Of Trees - Tori Amos

Our language of love

The Battle of Trees

We fought side by side

No one had more

Sharper consonants than you love

And my vowels, well, were trusted

First comes the birch

Rowan followed by the ash

Then through the alder she forms

And merges with willow

The hawthorn blossoms

As the oak guards the door

«She» is the hinge on which the year swings

He courts the lightening flash and her

Summoning the spirits

Through incantations

You said, «that Thunder God

Seems to have

In our enemy, his own laureate»

But we knew the furies held the holly sacred

We were insulated

In a circle of words we’d drawn

With wisdom sent from 9 hazels

A rowan fire, and a willow rod

At 10 comes the vine

That generates bramble wine

The constant change of the night sun

A song in the blood of the white bull

Our language of love

The Battle of Trees

We fought side by side

No one had more

Sharper consonants than you love

And my vowels, well, were trusted

From ivy leaves

Is an ale that can unveil

The hidden meanings and serpents

Only revealed through visions

Yes, vowels could insert

«A» was for the silver fir

The furze or gorse then came next

With heather at her most passionate

The White Poplar’s gift

To the souls of the dead

A promise that it was not the end

But for the vine — the yew its coffin

Vowels and consonants

The power of trees

The power they hold

The power of prose

So when the church began to twist the old myths

They built their own Tower of Babel

From ulster to Munster

The reed gave way then

To the elder

The Earth turns her wheel

So that night follows day

From dawn to dawn

From winter to winter

That day the ash had power

Over the alder

Our language of love

The Battle of Trees

We fought side by side

Then he said to me

«I've dodged bullets and even poisoned arrows

Only to be felled by the blade of a vowel»