Ars Poetica

I am leaving my home in the country,

And the sky-blue fields that I love,

Where an oak tree shelters the homestead

And the clouds are like comfort above.

There’s a bunch of little birches by the water,

And my momma stands beside them and she cries;

Her tears fall like stars in the mill-pond,

And they shine brighter there than the skies.

There are white hairs in my daddy’s moustache,

Just like apple blossoms in the month of May;

And the moon glides along through the water

Like a little golden frog gone astray.

Oh, I won’t be coming back again too often,

I’ll be singing in a snowstorm far away;

But my home is in that sky-blue country

Where an oak tree watches night and day.

And I know they will think of me each autumn,

As long as that oak is standing there:

They will watch the yellow leaves fall in showers

And remember the gold in my hair.