Goodbye Ruby - Howlin' Rain

Goodbye, Ruby, watch you winding

Down these snake trails that roll like rain drops in the dust

Windy woman, blown my cover

I sit here all alone but I would never sing this kind of song

Wicked dreams

Down drowning streams

Of blood and other wild schemes

That play like mold for the rust

Swallow’s wings

And other old and tattered things

The dull and fade of wedding rings

Now this song is one of those

There’s fire in these hills, closer every day

The wind calls the hangman to my name

My father said the ocean would beat upon my grave

And that on that day I would long for my home

And it’s family stone

Here I am waiting in watercolor gray

I’ll wait for you or Jesus or any other technicolor day

Howling dogs at the dust cloud walls

Snapping at the heels of death

To share with them a piece of the catch

I long to see the Banyan trees or any other place

Where the waves are made of thunder

And the seabirds clean the blood from off my feet

Oh, wicked ocean made my heart a beggar

The crabs that ride the jet streams

Are picking out the eyes of my dreams

The fire in these hills gets closer every day

The wind calls the hangman to my name

My brother said the wild world would feed upon my skin

And that on that day I would long for the farm

And an honest simple faith

The majesty of insect wings

And the brittle of their bones

Reminds me of a tropic wind

Blowing through the skull of our home

Ruby, I chased your laughter with elephant wings

You left me for the law

Left me bones for the grave

Childish beauty, Sunday charm

All has made a ghost of me, spirit dead, shackled arms

As I hung the wind whipped your wild name

And pierced the heart of a fading ghost

For seabirds only death upon the plain

The blood that beats this heart is blood upon the floor

Ruby you lead the hangman to my door

My mother said a woman would be the death of me And that on that day no god would hear

An outlaw’s dying prayer