Walking home through Georgia
In the Year of Jubilo
The War Between the States is finally over
Beside a burnt-out farmhouse
Music fills the air
Where a mockingbird is singing in the clover
I try to whistle up a tune
A dear old mountain song
But something bright down deep inside me dies
After all the things I’ve seen and done
And all the men I’ve killed
A happy song sounds like a pack of lies
But though we may not feel like singing
Music soothes the soul
So it’s a sin to kill a songbird
In the Year of Jubilo
Lord knows I have been hungry
And you don’t know what it means
When a widow gives you cornbread with grits and greens
And sleeping in that widow’s barn
Bedded in the hay
A nightingale is singing til break of day
Although we may be hungry
Music feeds the soul
And it’s a sin to kill a songbird
In the Year of Jubilo
I remember…
Little boys who sang
Of marching off to war
I remember …
Little girls who sang
Of love forevermore
I remember…
Old men sang of horses
That they used to ride
And I remember …
Old women sang of meeting
In the sweet by-and-by
A child playing in the dirt
Beside the weary road
Once a white man owned him, it was all he knowed
A blackbird singing in a bush
The child laughs and claps, and
Something cold and hard inside me finally thaws … and cracks
Though we may be slaves to life and death
Music frees the soul
And it’s a sin to kill a songbird
In the year of Jubilo…
Posted by paulmilne 