Autumn

(album: Have One On Me - 2010)

Driven through by her own sword
Summer died last night, alone
Even the ghosts huddled up for warmth
Autumn has come to my hometown

Friendly voices, dead and gone
Singing Star of the Country Down
Even the ghosts help raise the barn
Here, now in my hometown

When, out of the massing that bodes and bides in the cold west
Flew a waxwing, who froze and died against my breast
And all the while, rain, like a weed in the tide, swans and lists
Down on the gossiping lawns saying, "Tsk tsk tsk"

I may have changed, it's hard to gauge
Time won't account for how I've aged
Would I could tie your lying tongue
Who says that leaving keeps you young

And I have got no control
Over my heart, over my mind
Over the hills, the rainclouds roll
I'll winter here, wait for a sign

To cast myself out, over the water, riven like a wishbone
You'd hardly guess, I was my own mother's daughter, I ain't naturally given to roam
And I lay low, when I return, and I move like a gurney whose wheels are squeaking
Alone here in my home and I laugh when you speak of my pleasure-seeking

Among the tall pines
Along the lay-lines
Here where the loon keens
There where the moon leans
There where I know my violent love lays
Down in a row of silent dove-gray days
Here in a row of silent dove-gray days

Wherever I go, I am snowbound
By thoughts of him whom I would shun
I loved them all, one by one
Cannot gain ground, cannot outrun

But time marches along
You can't always stick around
But when the final count is done
I will be in my hometown
I will be in my hometown