The monster extends its legs wide and big,
Dark against the sky of steel
And men gather to get to its top,
They bring their women
and their children,
They bring their rosaries and their leather bibles
Their linen sinks in the muddy roads,
Their worn shoes scratch against the paths of stone.

Doom, doom, doom
the monster’s heartbeat pounds
I hear it,
right beneath the ground.

My father used to take me there,
To the place under the amber-fazed cross
It shines, he said, with the mercy
of the blood spilled for our sins
But I didn’t see that;
My small neck
and my silly little eyes saw nothing,
nothing but the monster in the shape of a star.

Doom, doom, doom
The pulse pounds. Strong and angry
a drum echoing
through a crowded cave.

I shivered under its cold stance, under the eyes of the monster,
I’d never seen them, but I knew it had a thousand
All dark and hidden beneath trees
All looking down on me
You are seen
I hid myself under my father’s arm.
The sky thundered,
it always thundered as we went up, up, up.

Doom, doom, doom
the monstrous echo lingers
with every step,
with every breath.

Mother said they were just mountains,
But the black birds knew,
As they circled and rattled near the monster,
I could hear my fear in their croaks
Desperate,
drowned by thunder, bam!
each louder than the other
and booming from the mouth of the monster

Doom, doom, doom
I must’ve stepped on a vein
I feel it pump;
Up, up, down, down

We’d made it halfway up the path before lightning stoke,
It set the sky on blue fire and shook the ground to its core
My father and my mother knelt down
But I didn’t
I looked straight up, at the thousand eyes of the monster.
Under the blue flame of the sky, it looked down on me
You are seen
no one saw it, no one but me.

Doom, doom, doom
I looked to my right, then to my left—
and at last I saw its flesh, its arms, its legs
At last I saw the monster in the shape of a star.