Boats Against The Current

Tom Russell: Guadalupe
There are ghosts out in the rain tonight/High up in those ancient trees/Lord, I've given up without a fight/Another blind fool on his knees/And all the Gods that I've abandoned/Begin to speak in simple tongues/Lord, suddenly I've come to know/There are no roads left to run/Now it's the hour of dogs a-barking/That's what the old ones used to say/It's first light or it's sundown/Before the children cease their play/When the mountains glow like mission wine/And turn grey like a Spanish roan/Ten thousand eyes will stop to worship/And turn away and head on home/She is reaching out her arms tonight/Lord, my poverty is real/I pray roses shall rain down on me/From Guadalupe on her hill/But who am I to doubt these mysteries/Cured in centuries of blood and candle smoke/I am the least of all your pilgrims here/I am most in need of hope/She appeared to Juan Diego/She left her image on his cape/Five hundred years of sorrow/Have not destroyed their deepest faith/But here I am your ragged disbeliever/Old doubting Thomas drowns in tears/As I watched your church sink through the earth/Like a heart worn down through fear/She is reaching out her arms tonight/Lord, my poverty is real/I pray roses shall rain down on me/From Guadalupe on her hill/But who am I to doubt these mysteries/Cured in centuries of blood and candle smoke/I am the least of all your pilgrims here/But I am most in need of hope/I am the least of all your pilgrims here/But I am most in need of hope



I give you
the mausoleum of
all hope and desire.
I give it to you
not that you may
remember time,
but that you
might forget it
now and then
for a moment
and not spend
all of your breath
trying to conquer it.
Because no battle
is ever won he said.
They are not even fought.
The field only
reveals to man
his own folly and despair,
and victory is an illusion
of philosophers and fools.
--William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury