Another Song

Similar Ways

A nameless cold stalks these small-city streets
in the aftermath of snow and of sleet
It's been years since I dreamt out loud
Thus dies the child/So falls the proud

The whole city estranged since you I
since river birds wheeled through an untroubled sky
And sharp-handed men, they cut ugly and deep
and the summer-brown sorrow pulls me from my sleep

I walk down by the big Missouri
where the wind sings through these old oaks
past the dying buildings and the coffee shops
East of all the pavement and the smoke

In search of some soul at the old reservoir
and the prairie blows in through the wide open car
In bits and pieces, the day becomes clear
In shards of sunlight and the absence of all fear

And out past the cardboard graveyards
I leave this shell of glass and steel
and melt along with the last of the winter snow
lying naked in the creekbeds and the fields

In cowshit and straw by the side of the tracks
I've waited my whole life for trains to come past
Perhaps we've been broken in similar ways
But can't we just call that love and I'll have you
here with me today

And far past the sand and sagebrush
through mountains choked with springtime snow
we come at last to the arms of the ocean
a salty kiss so deep and cold...

(Copyright Thomas J Burbach 2006)

much peace,