Forevering

I heard this word - forevering - a long time ago from
a woman named Rose. She used it to describe a way of
dreaming ahead. She'd go forevering. I saw the word
again somewhere a few weeks ago. I'd forgotten it, and
it had dreamed ahead all these years waiting for me to
remember. This one is for the father whose son or
daughter has gone away and he is lonely in his body,
forevering...

An old man clears his throat out on the porch and starts to sing
The present's hard to live with so he goes forevering
There's a shiver in his body that no fire could ever warm
And a photograph pinned on the wall, a boy in uniform

There's a scarecrow on the highway, beat-up guitar in a sack
There's a tumbleweed keeps rollin' down a trainless railway track
There's a menace in the midnight where it isn't safe to go
And a heart that is afraid to tell the pain it's come to know

There's a girl up in Seattle, tryin' to form a metal band
A kid named Late who caught a freight back home to Beulah Land
There's a woman says she's leavin' and a man begs her to stay
There's an empty mailbox waiting on a Dear John letter day

There's a fallen priest in Texas whose faith once made him rich
He saw too many rainbows drown their colors in the ditch
There's a woman in Dakota lost her past near Wounded Knee
She walks on blind still tryin' to bind the hoop of history

There's a boy out in Salinas who has learned to swallow gin
He’s crazy like a circus pitched its tents beneath his skin
There's a hooker down in Memphis with blood blisters on her feet
Still lookin' for a porch light at the dark end of the street

There's a farmer in Nebraska, red dust across his face
And all he grows pays what he owes for workin’ this old place
There's a baker wakes in Couer D'Alene to make our daily bread
One day the sun will rise and he won't get out of his bed

The old man clears his throat out on the porch and tries to sing
Today is hard to live with so he goes forevering
He hasn't heard a word now, it's been near twenty days
He's lonesome in his body and singing's how he prays

DL