Monday, May 21, 2007

some woody.

Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves?
Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds?
You laughed as I covered you over with leaves
Face, breast, hips, and thighs
You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me

Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky
Your fingers played with grassy moss, as limber you did lie
Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there

Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away
The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go

There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned
Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why
The people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die

The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown
Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown
Your shape and form is dim but plain, there on our mountain bed
I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head...

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands

I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears
I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.

All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
My greeds, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight:
My loneliness healed, my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

nice pun?! :) Um...wow! Man, my first instinct was to look away like I was intruding on someone else's fire...powerful stuff! But then I must say, I was captivated! Especially, in the last three stanzas where I found much renewed hope & peace that God has made me--heart, mind & body--to bring joy & purpose, comfort & fulfillment to the man that will be my husband one day. Good stuff--thanks Zach!

3:50 PM

 
Blogger David said...

woody guthrie wrote it. the same dude who wrote the innocently patriotic and communal song "this land"....he was an interesting dude. look him up if you haven't yet...WIKIPEDIA!

7:21 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow...the dude had 8 kids & 3 wives! But, he mentored one of my absolute favs--Bob Dylan! I finally got a used copy of his London '65 documentary--"Don't Look Back"--it's friggin' amazing!!! You have to check it out if you haven't already.

7:49 PM

 
Blogger Melanie said...

IT's a great piece. Have you ever read all of the verses to This Land is Your Land? A couple of them were rarely in the textbooks. LOL

When I was in high school a friend had a reel to reel of Pete Seeger singing This Land with all the verses.

I have to admit rather liking this one:
"Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was posted, said “Private Property”
But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing --
This land was made for you and me."

Pete didn't say "the back side" though, he said, "the other side" which probably doesn't change the meaning. LOL

I think this land was probably a little more protest than patriotic in reality.

http://angam.ang.univie.ac.at/RoadCult/guthrie/Land.htm

1:56 AM

 
Blogger david bechtel said...

I just read the last post on the Mae Journal page, the Mae 27th post. It talked a lot about what Jacob believed. I was just wondering, even though Mae isn't a Christian band what are your personal beliefs about the existence of God, who God is, who was Jesus and what it means to be a Christian or any other free info you might want to throw in. I'm just trying to find out more about you guys. I love your music. I love your band. Take care and God bless.
Always in Him,
david
d.b

5:37 PM

 

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