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I
Seasons turn, but don't wait for nobody.
's long and dark, them hard ol' winters.
but long's you got fire, and a couple of hairs left on your bow,
you last.

Dave Brown makes bowls 'round here.
Don't earn much, but happy, makes everything.
Banjo, chair, house, meat, bread, makes it all.
Banjo's got a piece of birds eye maple right there,
down where his wrist sits on the drum part.
's prettier'n he is, sure, but without Dave, just sits around
quiet.

That's why you got to get up and DO.
Get up and make somethin' and stop eatin' up
what's made for you.
Stop waitin' to play, 'cause if y'ain't got no banjo,
you could make one yet, and follow its strings like a
shortcut.

Goin' somewhere, maybe.
Stoppin' the world from fallin' apart and
forgetting how to drop seasons down,
maybe.

Jenny makes sugar with her family.
Jenny saw me lickin' the maple gunk off my plate after flapjacks,
and asked me if I wanted a gallon.
I don't know if my face lit up, but hers did just watchin' me smile.
I told her "I'd work." Told her "I'd help." Told her "I'd
drive yer horses all through the woods so you could leave that
gassy old 4-wheeler in the shed where it belongs and leave me
behind a team, where I belong." Laughin' in the snow.

But then again, she got more excited thinkin' about
my fiddle music than my work.
Just my tunes bumpin' around with the steam in the sugarhouse.
Just tappin' my toe on the one inch o' floor board
not already stepped on by somebody in the crowded shack,
all the diffused lamplight through the steam leavin' shadows
on my corner spot, on my fiddle, on my bow.

That's all? Doin' nothin'? Fiddlin' around and settin' there
smellin' the good steam comin' up and borrowing a few whiffs
just to remember the old times by? That ain't work where
I come from. That's a musician's dream. Dreams can be fun for a while,
but sometimes you start to feel like you're cheatin' somebody-
yourself maybe, gettin' fat in the sugarhouse.

But not Ol' Brown. He works hard. He picks a claw hammer tune
with his beard a-pricklin' out and his one eye squinted down like.
Prettier'n he is, but like I say that's why you got to
GET. UP.

II
Haven't written back to Montana.
People miss me, people hate me.
Gone. Never see my friend no more.

I got a dog, did anyway.
I swear I love her, took good care of her, too.
Never trained her good, but walked her so long
she limped on her bad leg and went to sleep.
Ain't my dog no more. No place for her with me.

Left my rosin home again.

Ol' Brown pickin' away, and dark, raspy

gasps comin' off my bow like a kid whinin'.

Not like Kitchen Girls, or Julia Delaney, or Soldier's Joy,

a kid whinin'.

oh well.

Ain't a kid no more. World's duller, now.
Full o' stuff I already know, don't know yet,
hain't gonna know and don't WANNA.
Lookin' more for reasons, than answers.
Sometimes shocked that this is it.

DRUNK and waiting for my girl. She ain't.
She works, not me. Well, not true, the government
pays me to vaccuum and mop. Why?
Likes clean floors I guess.
oh well.

I know somewhere in that mirror sits
the whole life I've got behind me.
I try so hard to see myself sometimes but I can't.
Beard, tired eyes, hurt back, dirty.
Smile? Still works, every time.

Across the hall's my Mando.
Outta tune, A-string buzzes a bit.
Every time I play, sounds a little better.
Every time I seem to listen less and feel more.
Don't think I need my ears no more
cause the bones in my palm resonate,
each of my fingers feels a different string's noise.
My pinky hums all the stuff I sound on the E up there,
my pointer is the G-string singin' bass.
Even deaf I'd play, just to feel it.
And even out like a dog and buzzing-like,
I play it very fast. And every time I say,
OH! WELL!