In Salida - Amy Speace

Once upon a recent time

With days to kill and a long long drive

The detour to where he once was mine

I found myself back in Salida.

There was a man with eyes like the sea

The green and gold of summer weed

Who held his heart between his teeth

There was a man who once chose me

Brick fall in at the back of the bar

.

like a river folded arms

His arrow stare tore me apart

Off my course broke both our hearts

But the second time around

We held each other underground

In the shadows of the city lights

My ring-burnt skin his covered eyes

Like a dream that rolls down hill

We tumbled headfirst as we spilled

Still we tried to hold on to the wind

I never saw him again.

Now with time to spare and a borrowed car,

Skin tight aggrieving heart

From another love, another time,

I retraced the steps I’d left behind

Went back to that mountain town,

I whispered his name to the threatening clouds,

Trying to conjure up that underground

Afraid to speak his name out loud

It was a place where time had slowed

Now its cafes are vintage clothes

And I knew who I’d come here to let go,

And left long ago.

We tasted then the desire and rage

Like actors on off-Broadway,

This time I knew more was at stake

Alone I chased regret and age

I tried to trap them in my songs

But always got the timing wrong

So now I’m chasing down where I belong

To pay my dues before I’m gone

Chasing all the untied ends

I’m chasing them down so they blurring blend into one great love

I’ll make amends and pull back from the edge again

And heal the thing that stuck and broke

The knot it’s always in my throat

A country on the verge of an overthrow

Rusted belly of a sunken boat

And in the last light of that winter’s day

I lit a match and I watched the flames

From the biggest fire that I could make

Made a coyote breath, a river.

The Hudson Line, the …

The Cumberland, the Arkansas, traveled a long way from Tennessee

To settle this free.

Once upon a recent time

With days to kill and a long long drive

The detour to where he once was mine

I found myself back in Salida,

In Salida

In Salida