Shady Gate

When I was young the mom next door would

have tea at our house and she said her heart was

broke and she told me that life was based on faith in

the Evermore but me I was always trying to find a way

to get a dime and go outside and play. It was pretty

weird my childhood years, especially with the

transference of those dreaded adult fears that I

remember a song the moms would sing and we'd

sing along...

"If you go through that Shady Gate

Have soneone near who is for you

Someone who will not mind to wait

As you go slow through shady gate."

He left my mom when I was ten. She said she

didn't give a damn...that they'd never amount to

anything and they woke me up one night in the

middle of an awful fight and I heard him yell 'What

about my needs?' and her hiss back "Why don't you

wake up all the neighbours too but please just leave

me be, another kid would finish me" and in the

morning while I ate my cereal he left...I didn't look

so I

didn't see...and she got a better job in the new

department store and me I had to rush right home

from school and feed the kids...they didn't ask about

him much.

But I asked her once about 'Shady Gate'. It was

late one night whiel we were hanging out the laundry

and she said that Shady Gate was when sweet time

won't wait, it's like when a choice gets made like a

deck been laid and maybe the sun will shine or

maybe it won't at all but whatever is coming for you

you get to have it all. And I wanted to ask her then

exactly what he'd meant by 'needs' but we had to

rush inside the winter made her fingers split and

bleed.

And he knocked upon the door before my next

birthday and my mom looked real upset and she sent

us out to play and when we came back in it looked

like she'd been crying hard and him he tried to hug us

then and he said he loved us all. He said, "Anything

you want all you have to do is say" and my mind

raced to the brand new pair of jeans I'd seen at

school that day but you know that night when we

slept the monsters didn't come and I dreamt we sang

the song out loud only this time with a drum...

"If you go through that Shady Gate

Have soneone near who is for you

Someone who will not mind to wait

As you go slow through Shady Gate"

...I like the way you held your head and how you

muttered right out loud...the things you said...you

were so serious and I didn't believe at first you

saying

there was still some place you had to go and still

something you had to know. "Well, wash your face"

my good friend tells me and "Clean your house in

troubled times"...I must admit it helps an awful lot to

go on loving what you love you see I've even trained

my mind, I'm not afraid to look behind. It's a cool

night

falling with the night birds calling and I dare not

wonder where you be. But it's times like this I wish I

had a line to mother love or even just another word

for Eternity.