My Soul Rises Still
Words and music copyright ©1984 by Howard Ashby Kranz
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1. Deep in the night and close in the heat, a sudden human cry jars my blood with piercing clamor.
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But this time it’s only a mocking prankster, and the pain and need of the cry dissolve in hollow laughter.
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Still the fear invites me to come inside its helpless place of cold retreat and displaced anger.
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And it’s only your faint remembered voice that calls me back within myself to strength so tender.
My soul rises still.
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2. Lost in the slabs of steel wall shelter in the concrete market where the souls weave days
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and the sun’s strength batters.
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It’s hard to hear that small real voice when inside and outside everything is such drone and clatter
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They’re telling me that you don’t care, then they turn around and they’re telling you that I don’t matter.
My soul rises still
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3. For far beneath their bottom line the earth’s truth sings in a noiseless voice of the dream that must be:
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They can laugh at my chains, they can burn my bones, they can break my heart,
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but if I live in you they cannot touch me.
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My soul rises still.