Rain on the River
Copyright ã 2006

Tires throbbing over slabs of pavement as black as the inside of a Pennzoil can
Another two hundred miles from here to her
Hydroplane on the asphalt river that carries me along
The rain connects me to a time long ago as if it remembers how
She had gone with me near the creek

We entered the new house they were building there with studs half-covered.
Alone in summer dark, we sat together on the plywood floor
We found ourselves in new maneuvers, further than I planned
Afraid of what might happen, or just afraid, but we went on
The envy of the rain outside as sweat rolled off our bodies
The storm echoed through that empty house

Afterwards she stood and brushed the sawdust off
And tonight I couldn't even tell you where that new house was
One night the timbered hillside thundered down
Like a dozen freight trains, crashing in a flood
That splintered walls and made the owners run
The river had cut new banks, left silt in bars
No one would know, down that dead-end road beneath the stars,
How we had trespassed there so long ago
The house was gone.
Under quiet hills tonight soaked with rain

Touch me. It’s so easy to touch me and start again

All I gotta do is keep these wheels rolling to you
I know that somewhere out there someone is listening to the radio,
the same station I am listening to with this man talking,
Just talking into space, he knows no one cares about what he's saying,
Still he talks and syllables and sounds and dust settle like silt in the open air,
There is strength in the silence between the words, a clarity in the cold
His voice is overtaken by static as I roll across the state line
But I know he is still out there in the void
Mumbling, propped up behind his microphone

The storm rumbles a lament of a thousand scarecrows who were never really there
The darkness is fractured by random attempts of lightning to defend the sky

I pull up a block from her apartment
Bleary lights halo like angels enshrouded in tapestries of falling water
My feet shuffle down the puddled street like sleepwalking through a graveyard
The streetlights recognize my silhouette as gutters guzzle in night rain
Would this be enough to turn this broken windmill of a life around once more?
Will she unlatch the chain from the door and allow me in?