Fred's Winter Song

"Fred," I said, "I see your garden's grown since I've been gone

You know, I left here in the springtime thinking you were planting mud?

Yeah, but you old men, you always think your own shit makes good manure

You call it 'compost' when you squat among the weeds in vacant lots"

"Well, where ya been this time?," he says

He says it every time

He likes to think that he is saying, "It could not have been that far"

Yeah, but when I tell him 'Iceland,' I caught him off his guard

Fred, he dreads the winter more than he looks forward to the spring

He burns a kerosene lamp inside an old ambulance

There's a dog he calls 'Trouble' sleeps in the middle of the road

But buried somewhere in his garden there's a vein of new potatoes

But will the birds forget to sing when I return here in the spring?

That's what I want to know

Even now the geese are flying mighty low

As I pack my bags to go

On one more tour

This is my winter song

I just thought it would be nice

If I wrote something

That would help break the ice