Four Fires - MewithoutYou
Dear seven sisters, all is distance here all look into never out
of every face I'll let you be my belief if I can be your doubt
signed from Persia: Kind subversions of a kind I couldn't say
as our blessed lack of conversation has kept me alive so far today
All my savings soon were spent,
so in the vales of early Fall
under tables covered rent
by packing bales of barely straw
with efforts held to circumvent
the watchful eye of federal law
And mama though I've been so alone,
my faith in love is still devout!
With solemn sounds and the potter's ground
beneath our bare wandering feet
our crooked hearts in Sacred Harp
sang out the dark inside us deep
their shapes of sorrow fell like shadows
on the farm-to-market roads
that led my stumbling steps back home
But mama why four fires burning?
Why so quiet Father's room?
Has he not heard his son returning?
or has he gone to gather food?
or is he off stomping 'round the forest?
or has he wandered into town?
"Son, I think it's best that you sit down-
His faith in love was still devout."
Mama sing my favorite hymn
as I sink deep into the grass
and the night birds beat me with their wings
with a hard laughter as they pass
the stage goes dim its pageants finished
fleeting worlds to which I've clung
with a now extinguished longing
Mama sing my favorite hymn
where we make ploughshares from our swords
and the mason's barber trims
our Christmas tree in the oneness of our Lord
what grace surrounds! what strange perfection!
Mama sing my favorite hymn
and remind me:
everyone is him.