Wash Him Down

He lifts the rain with just one hand,
saluting the sky.
For fifteen years he watched his father’s land
now the clouds bid him goodbye.
The sweet green fields have been reduced to dust--
they barely had survived.
Now the rains wash out everything
and the muddy waters rise.

It’s gonna wash him down.
It’s gonna break him down.
When the skies open wide
and roots pull from the ground
the wheel of life keeps turning ‘round.

Remembered when he owned a saxophone
and practiced it for hours.
Playin’ Coltrane and the country blues
among the rows of flowers.
Til mama handed him the keys one day
and said “we really need you here.”
His hands grew thick like his father’s hands
now he cries his daddy’s tears.

Chorus

He says forgive for what I didn’t know
and what I’ve never been.
The muddy water curls down the drain
as it washes off my skin.
In the evening hear the locusts’ song
keening sweet and low like violins.
Spirit voices lead him down the road:
He had to feel his daddy’s pain
Not to live it out again.

Chorus

He only prayed for a little rain.

©2003 LApp