they dance with me

folks sing the same old songs

sang em just about every day

calling on home,

somewhere to return to

one like the folk down the way 

i don’t think they ever knew

it was the same old words

same cadence and count

same notes, different

people, but always the same folks

and, by all means, they was gon sing that same ol song

but, by God,

it never had the same soul.

they came to me 

night after night

when crickets was chirping

and the toads was croaking

was a little confusing at first

new voices

strangely circling 

circling and singing

singing and crying

crying and sweating

sweating and sometimes bleeding

and bleeding and bleeding and bleeding

folks came with new wounds up in em

day after day

gashes in their backs

like when the pale folk came with taps

come to cut us for sap

all too familiar were strangers

that poured themselves before me

late unto the evening

libations unto Earth,

and Earth unto God

they knew to revel in all creation

whilst they sang about home, 

amongst me,

and my sister trees

the vines that clothed we

like their mother Eve

Momma sang to Baby

and Sister sang to Sibling

and those two young lovers

eyeing each other sweetly,

they always snuck off together

always

after they’d done enough of 

drinking of the other,

all sung 

crying to home in a land

where they were strangers

one not quite like their own

but I knew them

cause they came to sing with me

they knew the voice of the creator

the one we together loved

the one we together shared

i felt they wasn’t no longer strangers

and what i thought was home

seemed a little more stranger

on down the way