Greyhair

Greyhair fool, shoes undone

The fields ahead

Leaves black as coal

Landmark-free, no walls, no trees

to greet him on this night of his return

CHORUS:

So who will love this lie on legs

who can't change skin and is not yet dead?

The universal foreigner

The homeless greyhair son

Scrambles blind up muddy slope

then silent shakes before rusty gates--CHORUS

There's a house, its roof caved in

A rusty wreck of car

A lightning-blasted tree

and a man who says, "So here you are--

the boy who broke the plough,

who struck his father down,

who told us to be damned

and betrayed us to the Englishman!"

"Who will love this lie on legs?

On paving-stones I've made my bed

Not a living soul now speaks my name

but here at least I have my shame

I thought to come and taste once more

what the priestly fables all ignore:

the un-eternal consequence," says the greyhair son

Greyhair fool, shoes undone

Hilltop at dawn

Now hews his plough

Wind blows on

The soil is poison

He sets to work, he and his plough

Final union--He and his plough