Slow Walkin and Sad Songs

     (from the gravedigger’s POV)

 

 

Winners, losers, rich and poor,

They all come up this hill.

Sooner or later

I guess everybody will.

In life they’d never trust their loved ones

To the likes of me;

They never see me anyhow—

I hang back in the trees.

 

Slow walkin and sad songs

Lead us back home where we belong.

How lost?  How heartsick?

How heavy?  Lord, how long?

Slow walkin and sad songs.

 

There’s a man can tell you,

If you have any doubt,

A broken heart can cut a man

And let his soul leak out.

And yonder lies a dreamer

Who never quite fit in;

He could not bring himself to change

So he brought it to an end.

 

Slow walkin and sad songs

Lead us back home where we belong.

How lost?  How heartsick?

How heavy?  Lord, how long?

Slow walkin and sad songs.

 

I’ve seen ‘em come and go

And go right out of their minds.

Can’t help but feel sorry

For the ones that’s left behind.

But I ain’t seen such sadness

This side of Gethsemane

As when I watched her mama

Say good-bye to Georgia Lee

 

Slow walkin and sad songs

Lead us back home where we belong.

How lost?  How heartsick?

How heavy?  Lord, how long?

Slow walkin and sad songs.

 

The longest walk we ever take

Ain’t physically far,

Just the space between what things were

And what they weirdly are.

I suspect that anything

Worth havin, we can’t lose,

But at times like this I just wish

I had some better news.

 

Slow walkin and sad songs

Lead us back home where we belong.

How lost?  How heartsick?

How heavy?  Lord, how long?

Slow walkin and sad songs.

 

(For Wil Sims, a mighty writer and philosopher from Stamps, Arkansas, one of the brightest lights and sweetest spirits I’ve ever known.)

 

Tom Hale            Main Page