Four Fires
Dear seven sisters,
All is distance here
All look into never out of every face
I'll let you be my belief if I can be your doubt
Signed from Persia:
Kind subversion of a kind I couldn't say
As our blessed lack of conversation
Has kept me alive so far today
All my savings soon were spent
So in the vales of early Fall
Under tables, covered rent
By packing bales of barley straw
With efforts held to circumvent
The watchful eye of federal law
And mama, though I've been so alone
My faith in love is still devout!
My faith in love is still devout!
My faith in love is still devout!
My faith in love is still devout!
With solemn sounds the potter's ground
Beneath our bare wandering feet
Our crooked hearts in Sacred Harp
Sang out of the dark inside us deep
Their shapes of sorrow fell like shadows
On the farm-to-market roads
That led my stumbling steps back home
But mama why four fires burning?
Why so quiet Father's room?
Has he not heard his son returning?
Or has he gone to gather food?
Or is he stomping in the forest?
Or has he wandered into town?
"Son, I think it's best that you sit down-
His faith in love was still devout..."
His faith in love was still devout!
His faith in love was still devout!
His faith in love was still devout!
His faith in love was still devout!
His faith in love was still devout!
His faith in love was still devout!
(Ein kelohenu, ein kadonenu
Ein kemalkenu, ein kemoshi'enu
Atah hu Elohenu, atah hu Adonenu
Atah hu Malkenu, atah hu Moshi'enu)
Mama, sing my favorite hymn
As I sink deep into the grass
And the night birds beat me with their wings
With a horrid laughter as they pass
The stage goes dim, its pageants finished
Fleeting worlds to which I've clung with a now extinguished longing
(Baruch Elohenu, baruch Adonenu
Baruch Malkenu, baruch Moshi'enu
Ein kelohenu, ein kadonenu
Ein kemalkenu)
Mama, sing my favorite hymn
Where we make ploughshares from our swords
And the mason's barber trims our Christmas tree
In the Oneness of our Lord
What grace surrounds! What strange perfection!
Mama, sing my favorite hymn
And remind me
Everyone is Him
