Remember when we moved to South Carolina
And I got old
And I got old
Learned I was vulnerable
Starting to feel like an old house in the country
All clapboards and tin
Rattled by a stiff breeze
Slowly decaying back into the sandy soil
At the end of a rutted out dirt road
All lazy and wistful
Waiting for the weather to change
When I was out West the desert sun baked
Till I was all hardened and dehydrated
My muscles able to lift pianos
Hoist sofas over my head
Work and struggle and never hardly sleep
But that humidity soaked in
Softened my muscles
Soaked into my resolve
Drained my insomnia
And began to wash the color from my hair
The grey creeping up my temples
My beard a field of snowy white
Looking years beyond my age
All of the history of the land
Overcoming my sun-baked exterior
The land thick with so many trees
Stacked against so many trees
Hemming you in and holding you there
Singing entrancing songs in humming insect choruses
There is more than moisture trapped in the swamp
Mist of magic swirling around
The base of the towering loblolly pine
Drawing you deeper in
Calling you to your older self
Cloaked in the musk of moldering flora
