Green Book Of Meditations Volume 6 The Books of Songs - Student ...
Green Book Of Meditations Volume 6 The Books of Songs - Student ...
Green Book Of Meditations Volume 6 The Books of Songs - Student ...
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Watch the Field Behind the Plow<br />
By Stan Rogers<br />
Watch the field behind the plow turn to straight, dark rows<br />
Feel the trickle in your clothes, blow the dust cake from your nose<br />
Hear the tractor's steady roar, Oh you can't stop now<br />
<strong>The</strong>re's a quarter section more or less to go<br />
And it figures that the rain keeps its own sweet time<br />
You can watch it come for miles, but you guess you've got a<br />
while<br />
So ease the throttle out a hair, every rod's a gain<br />
And there's victory in every quarter mile<br />
Poor old Kuzyk down the road<br />
<strong>The</strong> heartache, hail and hoppers brought him down<br />
He gave it up and went to town<br />
And Emmett Pierce the other day<br />
Took a heart attack and died at forty two<br />
You could see it coming on 'cause he worked as hard as you<br />
In an hour, maybe more, you'll be wet clear through<br />
<strong>The</strong> air is cooler now, pull you hat brim further down<br />
And watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows<br />
Put another season's promise in the ground<br />
And if the harvest's any good<br />
<strong>The</strong> money just might cover all the loans<br />
You've mortgaged all you own<br />
Buy the kids a winter coat<br />
Take the wife back east for Christmas if you can<br />
All summer she hangs on when you're so tied to the land<br />
For the good times come and go, but at least there's rain<br />
So this won't be barren ground when September rolls around<br />
So watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows<br />
Put another season's promise in the ground<br />
Watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows<br />
Put another season's promise in the ground<br />
By Stan Rogers<br />
Delivery Delayed<br />
How early is "Beginning"? From when is there a soul?<br />
Do we discover living, or, somehow, are we told?<br />
In sudden pain, in empty cold, in blinding light <strong>of</strong> day<br />
We're given breath, and it takes our breath away.<br />
How cruel to be unformed fancy, the way in which we come –<br />
Over-whelmed by feeling and sudden loss <strong>of</strong> love<br />
And what price dark confining pain, (the hardest to forgive)<br />
When all at once, we're called upon to live.<br />
By a giant hand we're taken from the shelter <strong>of</strong> the womb<br />
That dreaded first horizon, the endless empty room<br />
Where communion is lost forever, when a heart first beats alone<br />
Still, it remembers, no matter how its grown.<br />
We grow, but grow apart –<br />
We live, but more alone –<br />
<strong>The</strong> more to see, the more to see,<br />
To cry aloud that we are free<br />
To hide our ancient fear <strong>of</strong> being alone.<br />
353<br />
And how we live in darkness, embracing spiteful cold<br />
Refusing any answers, for no man can be told<br />
That delivery is delayed until at last we're made aware<br />
And first reach for love, to find 'twas always there.<br />
By Stan Rogers<br />
Mary Ellen Carter<br />
She went down last October in a pouring driving rain.<br />
<strong>The</strong> skipper, he'd been drinking and the Mate, he felt no pain.<br />
Too close to Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt her mortal blow,<br />
And the Mary Ellen Carter settled low.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were five <strong>of</strong> us aboard her when she finally was awash.<br />
We'd worked like hell to save her, all heedless <strong>of</strong> the cost.<br />
And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to<br />
proclaim<br />
That the Mary Ellen Carter would rise again.<br />
Well, the owners wrote her <strong>of</strong>f; not a nickel would they spend.<br />
She gave twenty years <strong>of</strong> service, boys, then met her sorry end.<br />
But insurance paid the loss to them, they let her rest below.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n they laughed at us and said we had to go.<br />
But we talked <strong>of</strong> her all winter, some days around the clock,<br />
For she's worth a quarter million, afloat and at the dock.<br />
And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain<br />
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.<br />
Rise again, rise again, that her name not be lost<br />
To the knowledge <strong>of</strong> men.<br />
Those who loved her best and were with her till the end<br />
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.<br />
All spring, now, we've been with her on a barge lent by a friend.<br />
Three dives a day in hard hat suit and twice I've had the bends.<br />
Thank God it's only sixty feet and the currents here are slow<br />
Or I'd never have the strength to go below.<br />
But we've patched her rents, stopped her vents, dogged hatch and<br />
porthole down.<br />
Put cables to her, 'fore and aft and girded her around.<br />
Tomorrow, noon, we hit the air and then take up the strain.<br />
And watch the Mary Ellen Carter Rise Again.<br />
For we couldn't leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale.<br />
She'd saved our lives so many times, living through the gale<br />
And the laughing, drunken rats who left her to a sorry grave<br />
<strong>The</strong>y won't be laughing in another day...<br />
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow<br />
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go<br />
Turn to, and put out all your strength <strong>of</strong> arm and heart and brain<br />
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.<br />
Rise again, rise again - though your heart it be broken<br />
And life about to end<br />
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend.<br />
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.