Mariano - Robert Earl Keen

The man outside, he works for me, his name is Mariano

He cuts and trims the grass for me, he makes the flowers bloom

He says that he comes from a place not far from Guanajuato

That’s two days on a bus from here, a lifetime from this room

I fix his meals and talk to him in my old broken Spanish

He points at things and tells me names of things I can’t recall

But sometimes I just can’t but help from wonderin' who this man is

And if when he is gone will he remember me at all

I watch him close, he works just like a piston in an engine

He only stops to take a drink and smoke a cigarette

When the day is ended I look outside my window

There on the horizon, Mariano’s silhouette

He sits upon a stone in the south-easterly direction

I know my charts, I know that he is thinking of his home

I’ve never been the sort to say I’m into intuition

But I swear, I see the faces of the ones he calls his own

Their skin is brown as potter’s clay, their eyes void of expression

Their hair is black as widows' dreams, their dreams are all but gone

They’re ancient as a vision of a sacrificial virgin

Innocent as crying from a baby being born

They hover 'round a dying flame and pray for his protection

Their prayers are often answered by his letters in the mail

He sends them colored figures he cuts from strips of paper

And all his weekly wages, saving nothing for himself

It’s been a while since I have seen the face of Mariano

The border guards, they came one day and took him far away

I hope that he is safe down there at home in Guanajuato

I worry though I read there’s revolution every day