WHEN THE HEART
LAST LEFT A MESSAGE
At some point, sometimes, I think it's just
like no one cares. The grass grows high
between the trees, where no one walks,
I guess, even though you'd think that would
be where they walked, if anyone walked.
That gets confusing, and all these weeds
anyway make a mess.
-
And then I walked away, singing a Yankee tune,
'Love's lass gone a courtin' - someone told me
that was a favorite of Civil War guys tromping
through the fields. Yeah, I guess. But then,
not so many years later, Custer - who was a
Civil War guy too - he led all those guys to their
Indian death insisting upon some other tune, to
be played over and over - Garryowen it was called,
or, alternately, 'Of Garry Owen in Glory'. It was
an old Irish Drinking Song. I wouldn't have minded.
-
I had a picture, back then, in my wallet, some scratchy
daguerreotype I had taken in New York City - you sat
for it - and that powder-shot flash thing went off,
remember? I always liked it. Funny too, now there's
a bullet hole right through it. I didn't get hurt much,
though I was shot. I'm betting maybe you saved me.
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