I met her in Panola at a Black Dutch Caravan pulgas vestidas side

You should have seen the way she smiled when her chariot crossed the line

And she had this old soul you could tell from the way she wore

Them Goodwill shoes and that estate sale patchwork affair

She played alto clarinet in the Nome Community Marching Band

And taught Sunday school in a Pentecostal store front fold

And she was born near Houston when a line-storm tempest blew

And she would die in East Texas on the second longest day of the year.

Oh Lord, I guess y’all  just can’t afford a little man like me, my reverie.

Just pain cold bought in miles

One leaf blown night, paced the boards of the wraparound

Then I proposed on the porch swing with a bluegrass band serenade

In our little place we would laugh and roll ourselves to sleep

Side by side in the bed we made from hand-me-downs of family and friends

But after awhile she would tend to commiserate

As she watched her stories in the middle of the afternoon

And on the evening news another flood plain breech, up Nacogdoches way

She would cry herself to sleep and drown in the pale blue light

Oh Lord, I guess all you can afford a broken man like me is pale misery

On and on from womb to the grave

Oh but don’t count on me in this life of penury, I’ll forsake this, your tear-sown world

Laid her down to rest on a barrow-topped hill taking shade from Spanish moss

With strains of a brass band and “Just A Closer Walk With Thee”

A rose in full bloom with acanthus grace the alabaster headstone cross

I visited three times a week for the better part of six long years

I used to run a Brush Hog through on Saturdays

But somehow, I think, she’d like to let them little Bird’s Eyes grow

Then I moved to West Pensacola with the weight on my shoulders and ballast in a U-haul tow

And now I only come to visit on the second longest day of the year

Oh Lord, I guess I just can’t afford this old man’s lament or the marrow spent

In this life, it’s all that remains

Oh but don’t bet on me, cause I’m just a man and men will be tossed and torn, in this, your tear-sown world

© 2008 Shaun Cromwell