Mountain Man

I’m afraid I come back to the same themes again and again. In my last post, you heard the song, “Slow Soul.” I stand by its message. I think that good things come slowly and that a life well lived is marked by attention and presence. My ideas and my practice do not always work in conjunction, however, and I am deeply frustrated by the slowness of this rock star project that I’m pursuing. It’s not that I want to be a rock star now, or even next year. I just think it would be neat to get a reply to my emails and an answer to my phone calls—nothing earth shattering—only a tiny bit of forward movement.

Here is a Haiku that I wrote last year at 3 o’clock in the morning when I was in terrible physical pain and experiencing a different kind of desperation.

Glass
Blown by a drunkard
I cut myself on myself
Wishing I were sand

The next song is called Mountain Man, and it is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to characters living or dead is purely coincidental.

https://soundcloud.com/danette-beavers/songs

I hope you enjoy it.

Mountain Man

I trembled like a bride that day
And believed it almost true
But there was nothing borrowed and nothing blue
Only a mountain man and an old black dog
And I was the fool

The altar was just a hill of sand
With old tin cans to grace it
And the image of a paper man
And me with a gun in my hand

Chorus: We had sex and violence and rock-n-roll
And Dandelion Wine together
And that old black dog
Made us a family
But I wasn’t the last one
He would teach to shoot a gun
Oh, I was the fool

Just bend your knees and lock your arms
I think that’s how he phrased it
and fire on the exhale
fire on the exhale—two, one

I emptied it out just like he said
my paper assailant dead
and I danced a naïve victory
diminutive steps of victory

Chorus

Now all you ladies listen well
There’s a lesson to be learned
Don’t ever love a mountain man
‘Less he puts a ring upon your hand

Don’t let him put a gun in your hand

Chorus