The Clearing Sale

(album: The Man Who Steadies The Lead - 1980)

Have you ever stopped to linger when a clearing sale is done?
And the warmth of that old homestead seems to vanish with the sun
All the bidders have their bargains and the auctioneer is paid
And the twilight wraps the old home in its dreams of yesterday

The gate is swinging open as I take the lonely path
No welcome lights the window, no cheery blaze to warm the hearth
And I feel like an intruder as though I walk on sacred ground
Only silence comes to greet me for the shadows make no sound

There's a rocker in a corner but it won't rock no more
There's a lucky horseshoe hanging still on a nail above the door
I step upon a child's toy, hell, a broken tip truck red and blue
Oh I seem to hear a child laugh maybe you can hear it too?

I see my own reflection in a mirror on the wall
And a picture of a horse team lies forgotten in the hall
Just a few things no one bid for and now they're set aside at last
Like the memories of the homestead now they'll slip into the past

I wonder how the old man felt to see his tractor go?
And it must have hurt the old wife, though she'd never let it show
To see the things she had a lifetime now pass into other hands
No a clearing sale's not easy friends when it's time to leave the land

Just a few discarded relics of the days that used to be
And I leave them as I found them for what could they mean to me
Now the night is on the old house and the starlight softly gleams
As I close the gate behind me and leave the homestead with its dreams