Coyote Don't Know

Lone hawk circling, soaring
Higher than I've ever been
No matter how high we get
What's gone ain't coming
    back again
I'm lying on my back and the
    whiskey's almost gone
Just waiting for that river of tears
    to start flowing
The horizon's on fire everywhere
      you look
Just the light from their cities glowing
   Well, I ain't ever been there
   And I ain't ever going
   What coyote don't know
   Ain't worth knowing


Took it home again last night with the 
   headlights off
Just to see how long I could stay out of the ditch

With that yellow moon riding high
    and that Eldorado floored
I was feeling almost white-man rich
Every few miles I passed a 
    warrior's grave
Wrecks on a dark night on a
    lonesome road
Though they were only riding  
   Detroit horses
To me they all died like braves
And they called out to me by my 
    real name, saying
"It's a good day to die, hurry up, might
   be your last chance"
And they beckoned me to come join
   the circle
Where all the skeletons danced
When that moon ran behind some clouds
    I couldn't see a thing
    But I knew where I was going
    What coyote don't know
    Ain't worth knowing

I remember it was Grandfather took me to hear him speak
I wasn't half-grown yet when he came to the reservation
He didn't try to tell us we had to be patient
And he didn't try to tell us all was right with the nation
He was small and frail with a terrible sadness in his eyes
You could feel the weight of the cross he'd carried 
     to this station
The day the people voted for him
Was the same day he got shot down
A couple years later Nixon sent Feds in here
Our men put a couple of them in the ground
Does it ever seem to you the rivers have all run dry
And the grass has stopped growing
And the only sound you can hear
Is a faraway wind blowing?
What coyote don't know
Ain't worth knowing

Well, I might be smaller than a wolf 
But I'm free-er than a dog
Smarter than the night
Slipperier than the fog
My uncle told me when he came back 
   from the army
Anyplace they don't own they call
   Indian Country
Every place in the entire world
The people don't want bought or sold
Now you call it progress cause you dig
   up our earth for uranium instead 
   of gold
Cause you use some different words
When it's the same old lies being told
We even got satellite dishes now
Bring in all that poison you're showing
  But you know, there's stars behind those clouds up yonder beyond the ridge
  By this time tomorrow it'll be snowing
  What coyote don't know

  Ain't worth knowing

Walking along the railroad tracks,
   wondering
"Do the buffalo know
     they're gone?"
Standing at the foot of the
       cross asking
"How'd a guy like that get to be
       so strong?"
I remember my father playing a guitar, 
  singing"Down in the valley, valley so low"
Remember my brother arguing with 
     the preacher, saying
 "If there's white men up in heaven,
      Then I don't want to go"
Now we're assured the people's future
    is bright
Cause we've staked it all on games 
    of chance
When I dream I don't see roulette wheels
    spinning in the night
But Black Hills where the antelopes prance
Did you think before the black robes got here
We didn't know that we shall live again?
Did you think before you cut them down
Cottonwoods never bent in the wind
    Maybe your gods are stronger than ours
    Or maybe mine knows some things they ain't showing
   And maybe what coyote don't know
   Ain't worth knowing 

    

Touchstone

Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
   For want of air in a cave
Sometimes death can be heard in a single word
   That opens a stairwell to the grave
In a baby's breath is all that's left
   Of the hopes and the dreams of the saved
The souls of the blessed are clad in tatters
   So that you may call them brave


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first be fomented
Touchstone, melancholy clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown

True love travels on a gravel road
   So I have heard
Passes from my lips to your breast
   In a single word
Travels rough, sleeps in the dust
   Crosses every line
Sometimes love is like the death
            of a little bird
   For want of air in a mine


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first
   be fomented


Touchstone, treacherous clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown

And sometimes love is like a story
   Only you can believe
If this little bird should die
   Only I will know to grieve
And if we go in any further
   Then we may not be able to breathe
Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
    Pining for some trees


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first be fomented
Touchstone, trustworthy clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown


The river runs with slag

  And the top of the mountain's
      sheared off        
Each day at about this time
  I begin to cough
She walks cloaked in glory
  Like the night
No more will I go a-rovin' with my lord
  Until first light


In a dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed must first
    be fomented
Touchstone, grave clown, your
    secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown


Coal is precious, birds are countless
  His eyes are on the sparrow
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine
  And the way back is narrow
Everything is beautiful, especially once you see
  That it is all designed to be unseen
Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
   With nary enough air to sing
Sometimes love is like the death of a little bird
   With nary enough air to take wing

In the dark room
Here's the reckoning
What is to be revealed is first to be fomented
Touchstone, noble clown, your secret faith
Is in fact great service to our crown

1. 
   

The End of the Road

It was just a sign on the road
Didn't say nothing about journey's end
Don't see how someone who never
    got started
Suddenly got too old to begin again
Reason's don't matter now as much
     as the where
Story's one so often been told
The going don't matter as much as
     the getting there
To the last place in this world you'll
      ever have to hold
Now some might call it bad character
I'll allow that's not completely unjust
You can call it misfortune if you're
     feeling more kindly
That left me someone you can safely 
     mistrust
They say no one ever sets out to end
      up this way
I don't recall ever setting out at all
You can sing a song so long you become its sadness
Walk the high wire long enough you're bound to fall


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved

I always wondered what people did in places 
     like this
Even now I still don't really know
I'm still the one walking at night all alone
      down your street
Wondering who lives in the houses with
      the warm windows all aglow
And what did they have to do to get there
And what was so good about it that
     they stayed
Was it really just because they worked
      harder than me?
Or did they know a god who answered them 
       when they prayed?
Did their children always love them?
Would they love them less if they were poor?
A lighthouse is just the loneliest sight
When you're drifting away from the shore


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved


I had thoughts, but I didn't know how to say them
Held some cards, but I didn't know how to play them
I had debts, didn't know how to pay them
Found some things, but I must have mislaid them
There were dragons, and I tried to slay them
There were trusts, and I guess I betrayed them


There was a woman, of course
There always is in these tales that we tell
I wish I could say that she didn't understand me
But the truth is she understood all too well
And everyone's afraid of loneliness
But you know, there's some things worse
The thing with you she said once to me
Is you make feeling good like some kind of curse
If I don't really like it out here
That's not because there's all that much I miss
Every time I'm tempted to put back the pieces
I think of your goodbye kiss


And down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved

An angel is someone with wings
Who flies around all day and night
A sun is a star that's close enough
To turn the nighttime into light
To live in the bosom of Abraham
Is to adorn yourself with diamonds
     and pearls
Now everyone just keeps on looking
     younger
In him there's some small part of me

       made beautiful
To me, especially the girls
My son told me onetime Daddy


We're all made of stars and black space
Even if it's so hard to trace
If nobody cares where you're at
I guess that's one way of being free
You carry on too long like that
And that's all you'll ever be


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved


It was just a little adobe church
Where mass was never said any more
With crosses in a lonesome little cemetery outside
And candles burning on a simeple altar up above the dirt floor
I only saw a picture of it in a book this one time
But it sure looked like holy ground
When the time comes if I can only find my way back there
That's where I'd like to lay me down
Going's another thing I never got around to doing
Never made it all that far from home
But you can't really measure the distance in miles
When where you wind up is all alone
I'm not saying I didn't have my fair share of sorrows
I'm not saying I didn't bring on some myself

I'm not saying I won't still be
         here tomorrow
I'm not saying I won't be
          somewhere else
I'm just saying there's not too 
     much to worry about
Not even this rain coming down
Sometimes the rivers might rise
   and the world might flood
But so far it's never drowned


Down at the end of the road
You don't have to wonder anymore
Down at the end of the road
Nobody's keeping score
Down at the end of the road
There's no headstones on the graves
Down at the end of the road
Are the ones who couldn't be saved

Neighbors

I've only seen her once or twice
Though every day she sits closer to me than
   my wife, and longer
And the wall that separates us is not as high
I know this about her, though:
Her husband left her, and he's remarried,
  and on a carrier in the gulf
He won't be home for Christmas, which
  hurts her nonetheless, for the kids will be
  disappointed

One of whom has a learning disability, and recently underwent surgery on his eyes
She has cancer, and a lot of friends who look out for her
And the way she speaks to her son and daughter on the telephone is quite beautiful
She won't take chemotherapy or radiation, believing natural ways to be best
Though she did give them her breast
And she's probably younger than I am
She prays, of course
Etiquette demands that I leave unacknowledged that which I can't help but overhear
Yet I shudder every time she slams the drawer
And I'm not sure which part is unspeakable
If these are not words for a poem
Then neither are they words for a life

Mercy

Kitten licks my plate
Life is gentle and careless
Hungry and growing