Rose

O Rose when I think of you

Wherever you're blooming

Alone or with someone I know

Well, it shakes and it splits me

To think that you could forget me

And I won't lie and say otherwise

But, Rose, I was just trying to

Paint a picture for you but the canvas

Was cracked and the colors untrue

And I only sang the bitterest tunes

O mother I have never felt so good

Having married the world

I lost my last love and I married the world

The bridges, the ravens, and the squirrels

To hide among the black trees

The black ships and red seas

The long nights of avarice and fear

Can be as sweet as the sunrise

The blue and the brown eyes

And the long skies from horizon to here

O brother I could never be so free

As the rain or the buckling breeze

But if I keep them near me

And deep here within me

Well, brother, ain't that as free as I could be

And now, Rose, when I think of you

The cold never comes

And, Rose, believe me, I think of you each day

But the world that I was shown

Will be the world in which I'm grown

Even if I am to be born to it alone

Even if I must go forth in it alone

Even if I'm left to worship on my own

Swinging drunk here on the porches without you

Singing for you in the distances alone

Singing for you in the distances alone

Singing for you in the distances alone