[Verse 1]
[Spoken Word, flat affect, no music yet]
Far North Queensland mudflats, twenty-nineteen.
The handheld held still. (Or near enough)
The tide is going out, or it is coming in?
the watcher does not know.
Twenty minutes of mud.
Twenty minutes of light declining.

[Verse 2]
[Spoken Word, sparse cello enters underneath]
Snow took forty-five minutes
to cross a loft to a photograph of waves.
Frampton burned each photograph
while describing the next.
The image you have
is the one he no longer needs you to see.

[Chorus]
[Sung, low, slow — the first sustained pitches]
Nothing stands out.
Nothing stands out.
The standing is the field.
Watch long enough
and the field becomes the figure.

[Verse 3]
[Spoken Word, cello continues]
Train a salience model on relief
and the mudflat is dismissed.
Train a salience model on duration
and the mudflat is the lesson.
The classifier is the question
the body has decided to ask.

[Chorus]
[Sung, slightly fuller, organ swells]
Nothing stands out.
Nothing stands out.
The standing is the field.
Watch long enough
and the field becomes the figure.

[Bridge]
[Spoken Word, choir very faint and building underneath]
The operation is the content.
The tide is the subject.
The watching is the subject.
The field is the figure.
The figure is the field.
Selecting in the dark
with patience for a salience
we have not met.

[Verse 4]
[Spoken Word, choir falls away, alone again]
Three to keep. One to release.
The body decides what is nutrient.
The body is local. The body is yours.
The breeze is moving on.
The tide either coming or going.
The watching still does not know.

[Outro]
[organ pad sustains, water sounds slowly rise, no further vocal]
[Fade Out slowly]