Tree by the River

Mary Anne, do you remember

the tree by the river

when we were seventeen?

Dark canyon wall, the call and the answer

and the mare in the pasture

pitch black and baring its teeth.

I recall the sun in our faces,

stuck and leaning on braces,

and being strangers to change.

Radio and the bones we found frozen,

and all the thorns and the roses

beneath your window pane.

Now I'm asleep in a car, I mean the world

to a potty-mouth girl,

a pretty pair of blue-eyed birds.

Time isn't kind or unkind, you liked to say.

But I wonder to who

what it is you're saying today.

Now I'm asleep in a car, I mean the world

to a potty-mouth girl,

a pretty pair of blue-eyed birds.

Time isn't kind or unkind, you liked to say.

But I wonder to who

what it is you're saying today.

Mary Anne, do you remember

the tree by the river

when we were seventeen?

Dark canyon road, I was coy in the half-moon;

happy just to be with you,

and you were happy for me.