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