Every Grain of Sand

I'm in my Coffee Beanery office, listening to my iPod to drown out the noises of other customers doing business when Bob Dylan's "Every Grain of Sand" began to talk to me, personally. I'm sure nanotechnology was nowhere near Dylan's mind when he wrote this, yet I see everything through that prism right now, so I see it here. I typed up these lyrics as I heard them, so I might have gotten a few wrong.

I'm busy with a number of writing projects, while also flinging myself into the entrepreneurial world, playing salesman and attempting to impress people who can help me take these crude grains of ideas and build castles. Dylan wrote this during his religious phase, I think, so this song is infused with images of a creator. That might immediately open me up to ridicule among some in the scientific community, but I know Dylan, himself, has spent a career trying to anger his fans by doing the opposite of what is expected of him.

Anyway, this is a blog, and I'm not Walter Cronkite. Enjoy:

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
like Cain I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

Oh the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer;
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.