Four Fires

Dear seven sisters, All is distance here All look into never out of every face I'll let you be my belief if I can be your doubt Signed from Persia: Kind subversion of a kind I couldn't say As our blessed lack of conversation Has kept me alive so far today All my savings soon were spent So in the vales of early Fall Under tables, covered rent By packing bales of barley straw With efforts held to circumvent The watchful eye of federal law And mama, though I've been so alone My faith in love is still devout! My faith in love is still devout! My faith in love is still devout! My faith in love is still devout! With solemn sounds the potter's ground Beneath our bare wandering feet Our crooked hearts in Sacred Harp Sang out of the dark inside us deep Their shapes of sorrow fell like shadows On the farm-to-market roads That led my stumbling steps back home But mama why four fires burning? Why so quiet Father's room? Has he not heard his son returning? Or has he gone to gather food? Or is he stomping in the forest? Or has he wandered into town? "Son, I think it's best that you sit down- His faith in love was still devout..." His faith in love was still devout! His faith in love was still devout! His faith in love was still devout! His faith in love was still devout! His faith in love was still devout! His faith in love was still devout! (Ein kelohenu, ein kadonenu Ein kemalkenu, ein kemoshi'enu Atah hu Elohenu, atah hu Adonenu Atah hu Malkenu, atah hu Moshi'enu) Mama, sing my favorite hymn As I sink deep into the grass And the night birds beat me with their wings With a horrid laughter as they pass The stage goes dim, its pageants finished Fleeting worlds to which I've clung with a now extinguished longing (Baruch Elohenu, baruch Adonenu Baruch Malkenu, baruch Moshi'enu Ein kelohenu, ein kadonenu Ein kemalkenu) Mama, sing my favorite hymn Where we make ploughshares from our swords And the mason's barber trims our Christmas tree In the Oneness of our Lord What grace surrounds! What strange perfection! Mama, sing my favorite hymn And remind me Everyone is Him