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The Sky Did Not Fall |
1
Like a bee sipping from flower to flower
all that stored sweetness wasted on desert air
He sat with his feet in the water and
clapped four times like pistol shots
simply because he loved the woods.
Father to no one
hitting out at everything in sight
Up, up out of the ashes
after supper, sitting in the darkness
lean and active as a cat
cropped white head and hard grey eyes.
They sat there in the beginning of twilight
down in the creek bottom.
He refused to move until he knew
for certain and for sure
if it was just whisky and not blood.
2
"Hanging is the outlaw's path to glory
and much too good for the likes of you"
With the strength of mountains, he held up the sky
He left everything he ever owned
and rode off into the desert.
Time and the land swallowed him up -
the land he'd wrested from the Devil with a gun
and a
rope.
With the strength of mountains, he held up the sky
The house filled with the sounds of the wind and
the vast silences of the desert.
Down below, the river was covered with rings of rain
The wind blew the ashes away and
the sand covered up the scars
the desert reclaimed its own
"Hanging is the outlaw's path to glory
and much too good for the likes of you"
Down below, the river was covered with rings of rain.
copyright 2005
Yvonne
Garrett |
