Small Bird Song

You always seem to strike me
As a Helen of Troy
Sending sons off to war
Making men of boys
And grace ain’t hard to fall from
When you’re sitting up so high
It’s the way in which you tumble
The speed that you collide
Like a hammer with an anvil
Like a lake beneath the rain
With the lowest low you’ve ever known
In the age that you’ve obtained
Babe I’m bound for angels
Where the ten meets the five
I followed odd numbers up north
And the evens side to side
Being headed home
Is a special kind of hell
Where the fire that you burn in
Is one you built yourself
You know I keep a temper
Like the song of a small bird
Begging for sweet summer
To remember her
If home is where the heart is
I guess it’s just as well
I must have left my home in Denver
With a glowing girl
Talk to me of Texas
and the time you spent there
About that gypsy girl in a border town
And the visions she saw clear
With your skin as soft as sawdust
And a smile’s crooked charm
Baby, drinking helped to pass the time
But this is moving on
On a westbound road towards Tuscon
With the desert passing by
The sky hung like a hammock
Rocked me like a lullaby