Act I: The Lion's Den
Act II: Songs of the Wild
Act III: Stage Tricks
Act IV: How the Elephant Got its
              Thick Skin
Act V: Beyond the Jungle

I'll be a Penitent Boy
lyrics/music by Edie Marshall

Mama I been hearing voices
They’ve been saying that the ghost you sent to haunt me found a darker house to play in
And the boy I never understood is by the window praying;
though he doesn’t say a word
I can tell from his expression he’s been heard.

He was born a traveler and bred into a sentry
Who would build a wall from matchsticks
with no door allowing entry
But he’d cry and cry from inside,
“Won’t you climb the wall and get me?”
I was playing heroine when my
sandpaper skin burned away.

Fire turned his fortress to a smoky trail of splinters
he would gather up in sorrow
as they sank beneath his fingers
and followed them across the fields he’d dreamed,
when he was younger,
were a country he’d discovered;
now he’d recovered it again.

I boldly stood before him with the flag my father’d carried
‘cross the flat suburban battlegrounds
to plant where he’d be buried.
“There are two ways you can claim this land
by marriage or by war,” I said.
“But, aren’t they both the same?”
With that he walked away.

“Would you leave me here alone,” I cried,
“to brave the wolves that circle me?”
He turned his head and smiled, then set forth
to seek his destiny
I fell inside the open grave my father had prepared to be
his place for golden years of sleep,
and it fit me perfectly.

“Sleep will find you gracefully,”
the worms would softly whisper,
“There’s no rest to greet you here,
only sores to grow and fester,
You’ve been waiting for a savior
by the ashes of the traveler
Who's been saving you to see the one who set him free.”

Mama I been hearing voices
They’ve been saying that the ghost you sent to haunt me found a darker house to play in
And the boy I never understood is at my window praying
Though he doesn’t say a word I can tell by his expression he’s been heard.