In the dark age before reason
warmed his sharp knife,
I took things to heart
that left scars with no wound,
like lightning without thunder
or melody, that barefoot gypsy
I fell in love with, like Night
and her moon, woman with child
sinking below frozen ground,
I learned the loneliness
of cold seasons, and the wood
of the wild cherry will **** you.

Night, I call you
the sanctuary of the lost
and the no-good,
like the hawk down
in my pillow case
full of forgotten dreams
that old hound time
tears apart like bones
tossed under the table,
so I pull on my new boots
and walk in the dark
with no place to go
but the road that leads
to the ferry by the river,
because unlike lost friends
and dead family, the cold
water will always take me in.

Somewhere along the way
I picked up a heavy load
of dead wood, a couple of degrees
east of East Tennessee,
a few bottles uncorked,
problem women, and another
woman, a child, and a mortgage,
all while I wandered down the left fork
of the wrong road like the red silt
in a river that has forgotten
its source, but enjoying the scenery,
the journey, and, of course,
the paths I tended to leave
through the high weeds where I lost
myself and my footprints so loud
I could hear them before I left them
on the ground behind me
like hollow dreams trampled down
beneath the feet that I follow.

I want her to rise up again
like when she lifted her blue
skirt looking at how brown
I am taking off my shirt
and there are somethings
you learn if you were born
on a farm where I watched
her shadow in the middle
of the night overlooking mine
in the dark where we hid
from the light listening
to the wind, that sad poet
of the unknown pulling back
the dead eyes of those singing
sweet songs in the long night.

Come on girl
it's time to fly

Don't let this gray sky
hold us down

The water may swirl
but we won't drown

Ain't nothing but the wind
and the rain keeping us in

Let's get on out of here
and get some air

Driving sideways
through this storm

Running its fingers
through our hair

Like a swarm
of honeybees came

Singing Love is like a hurricane
and Here comes those tears again

Writing words
upon my window pane

Come on girl,
it's just the wind and the rain.

Last night I rode
that dark train
through the hollows
of my childhood
on the black wings
of a swallow fleeting
beneath the eaves
of long ago evenings
where bone moths
were breathing
their last breaths
while dead children
slept well up the hill.