Yeah, I've been walking, I've been walking between the Shadow and the Fear One of them cries out true, true love and the other one keeps me here and the other one keeps me here Before she had me, my mama cried out She had a sharp and burning pain And she lay right down In the middle of the street and I crawled out Into the rain and I crawled out Into the rain Yeah, I've been walking, I've been walking for forty years or so I've got your memory as my pillow So lay me down In the falling snow Oh, lay me down In the fallin’ snow

Soon, Henry David, wind will fill the land saluting your centenary. Do you suppose that alma mater’s orators at her memorial solemnities will quote: “What branches of learning did you find offered while at Harvard, Mr. Thoreau?” “All of the branches and none of the roots.” And will Concord’s divines in eulogies of you dwell on the public scandal of your unchurched life and unrepentant end? “It’s time to make your peace with God, Henry!” “I’m not aware,” the long-faced death-watch heard you quip, “that God and I have ever quarreled.” The pietists who con your works by rote forswear you and themselves with servile oaths to placate golfing clerics, bawds of the press, snoopers, war-hawks, kept Congressmen. Silent they stand while lying leaders make our name odious to men, shield tyrants with our might, huckster new-packaged servitude for freedom, and dub the peoples’ butchers “democrats.” The coffle of pampered house-slaves will dare hymn you dead. Come back! They’ll turn you in. “How should a man behave towards this government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace associate himself with it.”

Well, the train I ride needs no baggage It pays to travel light It runs to the East, it runs to the West but it mostly runs at night I’m going out to Kansas City got a carload of angels Going back to New Orleans got a busload of strangers Going out to the country with my water and wine I’m going fishing Till the end of time Well, the train I ride needs no baggage It pays to travel light (going, going, going, gone - it pays to travel light) I’m going down to Chicago gonna do it by the numbers Going to New York City that’s where I was born If I stand right here, I’ll probably die here It pays to travel light I’m going up on the mountain Got my pencil and paper I’m going down to the bank I still ain’t laughing I’m going down South I know how you like it And I’m going, going, going, gone The train I ride needs no baggage It pays to travel light

I. Loving that part of the wide earth he was born on though it was white man’s country and he black each year he laid by a few dollars from his sharecrop half of the cotton he and his family eating light to do it going ragged and barefoot even in the wintertime till he got his own piece of this earth bought from the county for back taxes and they wrote his name down as owner there on the big book in the Court House at Liberty (meaning freedom) Amite (meaning friendship) County Mississippi The white men who had owned the land came after him then with bullwhips to teach him this was white man’s country and when the three of them had worn themselves out stripping the meat from his back he still was not dead and they figured he might talk so they cut his tongue out with a switchblade He died and his blood soaked into the earth he was born on the earth he had bought with his toil and with his children’s hunger II. Loving that part of the wide sea he was born on though it was white man’s ocean and he black he sailed it from a boy fighting the rigging on the old four-masters heaving coal down below on the freighters standing watch at the wheel on the icy nights while the years passed and when the skipper cursed him for his color or shipmates wouldn’t share his foc’sle for it he set his teeth and said nothing but saved every scrap of writing that proved he’d shipped AB or fireman and every nickel of his pay for his folks ashore One war he sailed through and they never got him though he was nine days in a lifeboat and when the next war came he was about ready to quit having the house all paid for and something put by to live on but he was needed It was dusk when the planes struck and he was at the wheel he just slumped and that was all until the next day his corpse sewn in canvas slid out from under the starry flag into the wide sea he was born on III. You ask me what would I do if I were a black man? and I keep thinking of these two who died one on land and one at sea murdered If I were a black man I would swear the same oath I am swearing now to avenge these men and all the men like them and the women and children white black yellow and brown whose blood cries out for vengeance all over the world Being a black man would change nothing the same men would be my brothers for brothers are not known by the color of their skins but by what is in their hearts backed up by their deeds and by their lives when it comes to that

The fog is descending The sun is projecting The bowl is a dome is the sky My eyes are going (at three hundred dollars a lid) My ears are in my knees I'm hearing things... A turtle was my mother A mouse hole was the birth canal through which I entered the flavor hut I'm floating by on a giant slice of bread Taking in the aroma I don't dare take a bite for fear of falling My nostrils are swelling My head is clearing Until a movie screen appears on my forehead A turtle was my mother A mouse hole was the birth canal Through which I entered the flavor hut I'm floating by on a giant slice of bread An image appears On my forehead and I'm eating from a giant slice of bread For fear of falling I’m going back to bed (The Hell I ride a thousand coaches long)