Drifter's Prayer

From as far back as I can remember, I've been a drifter

The drifting life is a lonely life but the only life I know

When I was young, I ran away from home and rode the railways for years

Across the cornfields and quarries and all the broken-down piers

I saw the green land and the big burning sky

A great dream of heaven in the world going by

These were the old and golden days of my youth

Even back then, I knew it as truth

Drifting was in my blood, in my veins

There was no other way

In summеr, you'd find work on the midway fairs

With the boys from Bostock and caravan city

Working the turnstilеs and waltzers

Speaking Parlyaree, the secret language of the carnival

But it was always part-time work

And when the autumn came, I'd feel the pull of the drifting life again

Once a drifter, always a drifter

Those are the rules of the game

I came of age and the world changed

The traveling fairs vanished

A new Funland appeared on the coast

And old carnies like me were turned into ghosts

I lived out of hotels and bars and old stolen cars

I fell out of love so many times

Somewhere inside me, a small fire died

Ah, but the drift, the drift, the drifting life

That was the life that was mine

Now I sleep on the crystal shore

With the far-away pier, all lit up like a magic torch

Sometimes I lie there and wonder, what is the weight of the moon?

What is the weight of love?

What does it mean to be truly free, under the sky and its mystery?

The answer will always be to drift, to drift

To drift is to be free