The Fisherman

He told the story these days with hardly a trace of bitterness at all,
He said God put that tree in my road to help me hear the call,
You see; Billy Bateman and I were fishing buddies for six long years,
Every single Sunday we’d hit the lake with our rods and a few beers,
And my life was a simple routine that made perfect sense to me,
Didn’t realize I was taking so much for granted if you don’t look you don’t see,
But trust is like a tool that never gets taken out of the tool box,
And it can leave your fishing boat smashed upon the rocks.
The fisherman will always be lost,
The fisherman learns to pay the cost,
A world contingent upon the will of the bate,
A life delivered to the palm of fate.
We had some hard times and my Katie took a job at the plant; Billy was her boss,
We celebrated that night; I watched her and Billy dance a waltz,
We all joked; Katie what if your new boss wants more than a slow dance,
She said; you’d have to give me a lot more than a job to get in my pants,
It was the best of times; seemed like nothing could go wrong,
But «heaven has a trap door» as they say in that song,
I’ve often wondered how Billy could bear to sit with me in that boat every week,
But thinking back there were some days when he didn’t hardly speak.
Well; when I first found out I couldn’t believe it and then suddenly I knew it
was true,
It made more sense than the sense of two and two,
It was Billy’s wife Alice that came to the house and told me that day,
She cried and cried and talked about how she would make him pay,
When she left; I got my thirty eight and I really felt like I could kill,
I hit the gas with a rage but on the way there I pulled off and just slumped
over the wheel,
It’s all over now and God and the church helped pull me thru,
And I will find myself a new bride someday; one who loves the lord just as much
as I do.
The fisherman will always be lost,
The fisherman learns to accept the cost,
A world delivered by the balm of belief,
A life contingent on the will of grief.