First Song

Then it was dust in Illinois
a small boy
After an afternoon of carting
dung hung
On a rail fence
a sapped thing
weary to cry

Dark was growing tall
He began to hear the pond frogs
All calling on his ear
They were calling on his ear
with what seemed their joy

Soon the sound was pleasent for a boy
listening in the smoky dusk and the nightfall of illinois
and from the fields
two small boys came
bearing cornstalk violins
So they rubbed their cornstalk bows with resins
and the three just sat there
scraping of the joy, of the joy
They're scraping of the joy

It was now fine music
The frogs and thre boys did
In the towering illinois twilight
make and into dark
In spite of a shoulders ache
a boys hunched body
loved out of stalk
The first song of his happiness
and the song woke his heart
into the darkness and saddness
and joy