Children of Children

Pictures of the farm before us
Old men in a gospel chorus Sephia
And saddle horses easy on the reins
Eighty-one a motor in your mama's seventeen again
She's squinting at the dusty wind
The anger of the plains

You and I were almost nothing
Pray to God that God was bluffing
seventeen ain't old enough to reason with the pain
How could we expect to stay in love
When neither knew the meaning
Of the difference of sacred and profane

I was riding on my mother's hip
She was shorter than the corn
All the years I took from her
Just by being born.

Didn't mean to break the cycle
At seventeen I went by Michael
No one ever called by my own name anyway
Half full generations
Living all these expectations
Giving way to one late to have a baby on the way

You were riding on your mother's hip
She was shorter than the corn
All the years you took from her
Just by being born