As the winding path takes me down
In the dust where the air grows still
Past the shattered sills to where the broken bricks
Lie tossed at the foot of the hill
To the gentle hum of the engines far
And the cry of the bird through the air
With the falling grace of dull light on my face
To the city I vacantly stare
Down at these hands that hang by my side
To the times they have twisted and bowed
For the graft they’ve done, the thousand tasks been run
To lie still and idle now
As a boy I would sit here and whistle my tune
And watch the world role on by
From the heat of the red-brick factories roar
The smoke spun soft in the sky
My boyhood dreaming waned as I grew
No more watching the race from afar
With steel-toe boots and a coarse boiler suit
A lad amidst the furnaces scars
I learned my trade, how I listened and watched
I worked as hard as hard can be
But with passing years I grew proud with hope
Of a future that was never to be
Late in the day as the Autumn turned pale
A figure watched us work from the dor
Into burning air his words spoke clear
In a haze our jobs were no more
I awoke each morning days stretched into nights
And I lurched through a hollow routine
In the queues each week with companions I’d stand
But our fortunes had turned on our dreams
For two sons and a daughter we had to provide
My wife worked long into the nights
To escape the stale air of a room with four walls
I skimmed stones at the quarry till light
In the years that followed things picked up and shone
And I hustled a job where I could
Re-skilled and re-tooled with a home of our own
In a strange shifting world we were stood
As time wore on our children grew tall
And I taught them all that I’d learned
In and out of trouble, the same as their dad
Dodging cots, running streets at Pikes turn
As some strangers say, we’ve carved our own way
In a world that still lists and turns
But once again there’s no work for the young in this town
And the queues form in air that still burns
With the dusk tales said, as the evening light ebbs
My son walks off into the night
With only dull flapping wings of the last bird that sings
He skims stones at the quarry till light
Lyrics provided by LRCLIB
