my own search

(Down the road from your memory track 8)

i’m heading north on I-5

saddled in for the day 

i'm leaving Bend for Vancouver Island

why is a story i'd rather not say

and yet i have to go   mama   on my own search for heaven 

    the deschutes is flooding

while the lion’s overhead   our little nile overflown 

  and they say that’s for the best   but I’m leaving you 

 early this summer    and i’ve yet to take a rest

the train’s passing on my right side

its whistle screaming hidey ho

southbounds a blur on my left

and it's only static on the ray-dee-o 

and if i'm lyin’ i’m flyin 

past the end of today

if i’m lyin’ i’m a flyin

past a memory of a face

every time i think 

 i see you    i go to say hello 

   hair tucked behind your ear    that angle from the back and 

 a bit below    you’re looking over evergreens 

   at Regulus     the paw       you whispered of 

                                            her freedom earned

 how she skinned the lion  with its own claw 

      then you kissed me on the forehead   

            and we both let out a roar 

if i'm lyin’ i’m flyin 

that’s what the train workers joked

as the moon dripped between pine ridges

over a toke 

the train’s promise for anywhere

may as well be dead and broke

but the whistle keeps on ringing

hiiiiiidey hooo

hiiidey ho 

and I don’t think I’ll get used to it 

           hearing your name from town 

   to town as i pass through   Mama you took the fall 

      for me and now you’re all over the news

 if i’m lyin’ i’m a flyin’

 so the saying goes

and the train whistle’s singing 

         hiiideeey hooooo