KIND HEARTED WOMAN
Lyrics
In times when hobos were common to the American experience, they shared a vocabulary of "hobo signs." Chalked or scratched on pavements or fenceposts in front of houses, these simple pictures guided those who followed. A smiling cat meant "Kind Hearted Woman" -- someone who would offer a warm meal, an odd job, a place to sleep for the night. You get the idea.
Almost got a coyote today, a lowdown skunk of a dog, I say. I fired my
gun as he slunk away but he'll be back again. It ain't been easy since my
husband died, a widow woman at 35. None can court me, few have tried, but
I keep these homestead hopes alive. Couple of cows, couple of hens, mule
that plows every now and then, but mostly balks & wears me thin, he can't
talk but I swear he grins. Don't call it a prairie if you fenced it in,
could call it a pasture but the topsoil's thin.It just might rain but then
again, it won't make no difference. Ever since they built that damn railroad,
hobos knocking at my door saying Lady I will work for food, can I haul you
water, can I chop you wood? Well, let me take a good look at you (there
ain't nothing lye and hot water won't do) You can sleep on my porch if you're
wanting to and then I give him my husband's old brown boots.But in the morning
he was up and gone, a chicken missing from my pen. I told you that coyote'd
be back again, but it don't make no difference
Midnight and Yolanda has a long walk home; midwiving a hard labor, the
baby was stillborn. Still the mother asked to hold the child that never
cried, rocked it gently softly keening a plaintive lullaby...Hush! Yolanda
walks along the river road humming softly, 'Were you there when they crucified
my Lord?' The sky has never shined so bright, the night so dry and clear.
Crickets and cicadas consolations in the air. Yolanda's husband wakes the
children, dresses them for school. "Your mother was up late last night,
I packed your lunch for you" So the house lies silent and they all
will be home soon by the time she rises in the early afternoon. Then once
again Yolanda walks along the river road where live oak are dying, pines
are crying & sits beneath a willow. Prying from that tender trunk a dry
cicada shell,crushes in her fist as the sound begins to swell
I seem to have lost my patience waiting for the clouds of dust the custom
cutter brings. The foreman called to say he would be here any day with his
convoy of threshing machines. Now what would make a man make a promise he
can't keep? A custom cutter crew could clear this harvest in a week while
me on my John Deere would take more than a year to lay down this harvest
of winter wheat. I allow as how I've my own frustrations. I was counting
on this crop to lay my mortgage down. I admit that there's a limit to my
patience but, damn it all to hell, they should have been here by now. It's
a hundred days preparing the field, & it's a million seeds you sow and scare
a thousand hungry crows. But when the harvest moon is in it takes just one
cold rainy day to watch it all get washed away. Winter wheat, the grain
is groaning on the stem. When the custom cutter comes and the harvest is
in perhaps I'll find my patience again
They found him a guilty man but it don't feel like justice & it wasn't
a first offense. Heavy drink was on his breath, her death was on his hands.
Now you must look into his eyes for your consolation prize. You held your
father in your arms while he cried like a baby but you were too cold to
mourn. By the fireplace late last night you tried to get warm but the fire
wouldn't start and so you sat there in the dark. You feel your body growing
numb. It will thaw in a year or ten, it happens to everyone. Friends can
only watch and wait while the seasons slowly change. It's a fact of life
that we learn to live again. Winter will soon be here & except for the holidays
it's a fine time of year. Skies are turning grey, snow will fall so deep.
You don't want comfort, you only want to sleep
This boy named Eddie used to set the fields on fire. He's the only boy
I know who dared to name his desire in a county where the dairymen all had
milking machines. Eddie was the only one to separate the cream. Eddie and
his father let the cows come home. They were out in the pasture in a late
summer storm when out of the blue a lightning bolt came down and where his
father stood, now smoking bones lay on the ground. His father's remains
lie in the Kelsey Cemetery but dogs like to dig up the bones that we bury.
You can burn a field but you cannot burn the sky that took your father from
you in the twinkling of an eye. But you can burn a field, sending clouds
of black smoke up into the heavens praying God will choke. Now you know
my story and you know it wasn't me or my friend who did it, it was that
boy named Eddie
A child like Grace, I wish you could've seen her face. How bright that
sunflower shone! With a child like Grace running all around this place it
should be said, "my, how you've grown..." She was only three when
she taught herself to read "I do not like them, Sam I Am." She
taught us how to love. We learned so much but not enough. I'm sure that's
when we learned to give a damn. She graces life no more. She was only four.
She died before she was five. It's a grave mistake God in his wisdom makes.
What does he care? He fashioned us from clay. Now lay me down in a bed of
sunflowers overgrown and wild. I've survived my own child. See the fields
& meadows crying, proud dandelion heads turned grey. Now the wind in a puff
blows you away....
Try and forget it and yet it keeps you awake. Live to regret it when
the fever breaks. Lighting up a cigarette, even the slow hand shakes. But
it's a cold sweat when the fever breaks. In the shank of night there's no
end in sight. I can't see a light. This might not be a tunnel. If it were
up to me, I wouldn't make that mistake but history repeats when the fever
breaks. I know what it's like to feel fear. There's been so much confusion.
The point is never clear, but make it without illusion. Call it an intrusion,
if you will, if that's what it takes. It's the Sound of Mind when the fever
breaks. It's all parlor talk at the dead man's wake. Bring out the winding
sheets when the fever breaks. A slow and painful death ends faster than
the eye can see. Taking your last breath feels like Eternity. Catching a
cool breeze across a late summer lake, feel the chill of autumn as the fever
breaks.
If you're asking me to name this tune I may say it's 'Silver Spoon' or
I may smile and say 'hey, hey'. You know, I never really found a way to
talk about the things you said about me, but that's okay. 'Cause when I
hold my hands out like so, you see, I'm, holding what's inside of me and
so you know, they're not empty. They're full of laughter, they're full of
dignity, and all else above, they're full of love. I never played with a
poker face. I've got my heart on my sleeve & my one ace in the hole is the
silver spoon in my soul. Hate is like a hurricane. It spins you like a weathervane,
a forecast tune. Love is like a falling rain, washing away the hurt and
pain and pretty soon I'm catching the drops in my silver spoon. As I lie
here in the bed I've made, outside my window shines the moon looking for
all the world like a silver spoon
If I was smart I'd take your advice but I'm not so I have to think twice.
Never a lesson have I learned without first being burned. I always thought
I ran away but now I know you told me to go. Maybe it's worked out better
this way. What could you say I didn't already know? Oh, the troubles I've
known. I seem to learn everything the hard way. I'm not old enough to be
on my own but I'm much too old to stay.
When I leave this town you will not see me cry, an east Texas town with
all the wells run dry. Looking to the sky, waiting for a change, no sign
of rain. And if I find life beyond the Interstate, past the rusting rails
andthe cattle grates, maybe I will call from a truckstop on my way. I'll
say "Howdy, ya'll....still no sign of rain." But until that day,
this porch is my highway. I hear trucks roll by. Fanning my desires, spitting
in the eye of hurricanes. Still no sign of rain.
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