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All for Loving You

About the time that time began,

Before there was a past.

All was sucked from nothing,

In that giant primordial blast.

You can ask the why's and wherefore's

But from my point of view:

There's only one reason for it all:

It's all for loving you.

For loving you

It's all for loving you

It's what I do.

I'm for loving you.

That giant arrow of history

Pointing right at you.

It's all for loving you.

The fall of the Roman Empire

Dark Ages into light

Colonies in the new world

Prosperity and the fights.

All a giant conspiracy

So I'd run into you.

There's only one reason for it all:

It's all for loving you.

For loving you

It's all for loving you

It's what I do.

I'm for loving you.

All a giant conspiracy

So I'd run into you.

It's all for loving you.

The students, the theologians,

They wonder what it's for.

Why the pleasures? Why the suffering?

How come beer and how come war?

Up close and personal

I think I've thought it through

The reason that I'm here on earth:

It's all for loving you.

For loving you

It's all for loving you

It's what I do.

I'm for loving you.

Call it a compulsion

But it's just what I do.

It's all for loving you.

Fear of the unknown,

Fear of the sounds at night.

When I was a child,

I slept better with a light.

Until that night the lights went out

When I really saw the stars

Now I long for the darkest nights

To lay out in the yard.

Turn out the lights.

Let the darkness fill the night sky

Let the stars shine out so bright.

Peer into the universe

Feel humble and small.

May the starlight and the wonder

Shine down on us all.

First Pleiades, then Orion

Creep across the sky at night.

There's still time to get Sirius

See Pollux shine so bright.

In summer there's the teapot

Million worlds in that steam.

Whose inhabitants watch the Milky Way

And wonder what it means.

Lights of the city cloak

The mystery and wonder.

More a ceiling than a universe

That's the sky we're under.

That brightness makes your world so close

Does it really banish fright?

See farther in the darkness

Than with the brightest light.

A fuzzy spot, a thousand stars

The telescope reveals.

And look into the blackness

Where the planets dust congeals.

Ride our planet through the history

Of all that was and is

While crickets chirp and bullfrogs burp

And meteors downward whiz.

with apologies to Francis H.C. Crick

You're nothing but a pack of neurons

In a shapely bag of goo.

All your thoughts and dreams,

Your hopes and schemes

Are electro-chemical, too.

You are what you eat,

From your head to your feet,

So watch out what you chew.

You're nothing but a pack of neurons,

But I'm in love with you oo oo,

I'm in love with you.

The first time I ever saw your face, dear,

My ions began to diffuse.

Your eyes aglow

Made my sodium flow

Through those membrane avenues.

When our fingers unite,

More than synapses excite,

And your lips I can't refuse.

I know we're more than just a chemical reaction,

Cause I'm in love with you oo oo,

I'm in love with you.

You're nothing but a pack of neurons

Controlling a bag of goo.

All your thoughts and dreams,

Your hopes and schemes

Are electro-chemical, too.

You are what you eat,

'Cept for what you excrete,

So watch out what you chew.

You're nothing but a pack of neurons,

But I'm in love with you oo oo,

I'm in love with you.

I'd like to know how my fondest memories

Are stored in hydrocarbon slime.

I can see your face,

Feel your warm embrace,

Or just think of you any time.

Four million years of evolution,

But we only get one lifetime.

Let's go and mix our chromosomes together,

Cause I'm in love with you oo oo,

I'm in love with you.

Hard rain awoke me in the night.

That only means one thing to me.

A bunch of guys with plastic boats

Will be skipping work today.

Grandma has to die again

We all meet at the edge of town,

Driving for the eastern slopes

To ride the water down.

I love to ride the back

Of a rushing mountain stream,

To thread between the eddies

Amidst the banks of April green.

The icy water warms my blood,

Waves splash over me,

In the river I am young, I am free.

To rise before the mist has cleared,

To chase the rainfall down the hillside.

Climb the goat trail road

To the bank where I unload.

I dress to seal my city skin

From the icy mountain water in

Which I'll float without my boat

If I miss a brace.

As I paddle down the mountain stream

The unsuspecting beaver

slaps his tail and swims to flee

the brightly colored threat.

The drinking deer sniffs the air

and bounds into the thicket

While Blue Heron wing in front of me

Then fly back overhead.

To rise before the mist has cleared,

To chase the rainfall down the hillside.

Again, the eagle beats his wings

To climb above the trees

Over the locks on the Rappahannock

What's left of history.

Where the Council and the contractors

Over quality disagreed.

Where the present meets the past

And some things never change.

For a man can only hold

A piece of earth

For a lifetime.

Water leaks through fingers

You can't hold it at all.

I love the Rappahannock

And its water running free.

In the rapids of this river,

That's where I want to be.

From Carter's Run at Waterloo

It drops three hundred feet.

Forty-seven locks in fifty miles

1849 complete.

With first year's drought and railroads

So quickly obsolete.

A canal system for just four years

And history ever since.

An aqueduct and wood crib dam

Fed power to the mills,

And factories and tanneries

The foundations are there still.

The concrete dam in 1910

Electric generators until

Only thirty years ago

And now a poor man's home.

Poison ivy coats the bank

Where you climb around the dam.

A century and a half of portages

Canoes across the land.

The damn dam blocks the spawning fish

Floods rapids behind the span.

I say its time to blow it up.

There's no need for this dam.

The Battle of the Squirrel and the CEO

Captain of industry,

Corporate leader,

Retired to the country,

Set up a bird feeder.

Finch-colored plumage,

And not before eight,

The chorus of birdsong

Not boardroom debate.

But the squirrels eat the birdseed

Frighten finches away.

The squirrels they get fat.

They pig-out all day.

Chased away from the feeder

They're back when your gone.

Scourge of retirees

The fiends of the lawn.

When you fight the squirrels,

You get no holidays,

No vacation, no weekend.

The squirrels elude your grand designs.

Each day they eat again.

When you fight the squirrels,

Don't let your guard down,

Keep your wits sharp till the end.

There's nothing else that matters,

You've got that birdseed

To defend.

He put the birdfeeder

Up on a pole.

But that didn't deter

The squirrel from his goal.

A coating of Crisco

Didn't get in his way.

The squirrel climbed right up

To a birdseed buffet.

A flange on the pole

Just slowed him down.

The squirrel shook the pole,

Knocked seed to the ground.

The angry retiree

Will try anything.

To avoid defeat

By this takeover king.

Chorus

The feeder was hung

By a rope from a tree.

But squirrels can climb ropes

When the birdseed is free.

A sheet metal barrier

Didn't stop him for long.

He gnawed through the rope

And he ate all day long.

So if you have wondered

Why the world's such a mess,

Look what men do

When they're doing their best.

Outsmarted by rodents,

Too proud to give in,

They use up their retirement

In a fight they can't win.

It might be oral tradition.

It might be in the genes.

They didn't learn it from their parents.

Did they hear it in their dreams?

March of civilization

Hasn't changed the playtime screams.

Voices from the children

Still reflect the same old themes:

It's mine.

Give it back

I'm gonna tell.

I don't care.

You're it

No tag backs.

Me first.

It's not fair.

If it hadn't been said before,

They'd have to make it up.

When you're only four years old,

Your feelings just erupt.

If you can't remember

What it's like to be so small

Walk by any playground

Listen to the calls.

They say the world is changing.

Not like when we were young.

Folks are mean, the ozone's lean,

Even children carry guns.

But if you listen to the little kids

You might suspect that they're the same.

Try remembering what it felt like

To play in children's games.

Kickball, football, slides and swings.

Race and fight, roll on the ground.

Jumping rope, they dance and sing

Might be loud, that's how fun sounds.

Childhood is for learning

About other times than today,

About life and love and planning

And why all things can't be play.

About the little deals and big deals,

And how to wait your turn,

And when it's best to walk away

And when you should return.

Must have been the onions

Caused this funny state I'm in.

Another try, you'll have to pry

Your way under my skin.

Thank you for the onions

That really touched my heart.

I feel just like that vegetable

With layers come apart.

Try to change it.

But I can't change it.

Locomotive rolls on

Through hills, and snow, and rain.

Try change it

Why can't I change it?

Strength of will, push and pull,

I'm bettin' on that train.

Gotta focus

Time is growing short

I beg for concentration,

I count on your support.

If it weren't so difficult

I'd a finished yesterday

Ask me just what I need

I need another day.

Thinking 'bout mortality

Thinking 'bout the truth

More likely gonna slow that train

Than slow the loss of youth.

That sad song on the radio

It didn't bring the tears

Thinking 'bout the ones I loved

And haven't seen for years.

Can't be like it used to be

No comfort from the past

What have you done for me today?

What's ever built that lasts?

And each one's a little bit different

Some with piercing notes,

Crisp and vibrant.

Some more mellow

Like a bell.

Or, a little warmer

On the bottom.

'Sides, I never held the view

That I had to pick just one.

I'd like to tickle each and every neck,

And it's time that I begun.

Mahogany's a stable wood.

Sings out loud and clear.

Bass is strong and airy.

Richness everyone can hear.

So says the Taylor catalog.

With guitars of every style.

You know it's hard to pick just one,

So I'll just play awhile.

And there amongst all the woods

Rosewood's lovely grain

Deep brown shiny body,

Rich harmonics, long sustain.

Then there's koa, walnut, and sappel.

Great sound from every one

I'd like to take each one of 'em home.

Now, wouldn't that be fun?

Then there's beer:

Beer from every nation

Malt and hops and yeast.

No way to put 'em in order

From the greatest to the least.

Pilsners, lagers, ales, and stouts,

Flavors on the tongue.

All the beers I love to savor

So I'll drink every one.

Then there's women...

Instrumental break.

Chorus, then

repeat last two lines with these words:

I'd like to take each one of 'em home.

Now, wouldn't that be fun?

Thursday morning rainfall

East side of the mountains

Drops form into rivulets

And gullies into streams.

Sun was high on Monday

When swirling Thursday's water

Rode the river past the town

But the river's still with me.

River stays beside me

Though the water's always changing.

Waters blend, Best of friends.

Best friends last all life.

Want to finish 'fore the night falls.

Start early in the morning.

I'll carry up the shingles

You hammer, then we'll trade.

Side by side, we work along

Words that matter weave among

Our patter through the heat and sun,

My best friend's here with me.

We've stood so long together

Though we both are always changing.

Like waters blend, Best of friends.

Best friends last all life.

Round my body like a favorite chair

Wrinkles, folds, familiar air

Details no one wants to know

Each day I love you even more.

Dusted by the grey sprite

Just another milestone overnight.

Memories from my childhood

Don't seem so long ago.

Yet every day, you're someone new.

Each day, I fall in love with you.

More certain than the sky is blue

You'll be my friend for life.

We've stood so long together

Though we both are always changing.

Best of friends, Next-of-kin.

Best friends last all life.

Thursday morning rainfall

East side of the mountains

Drops form into rivulets

And gullies into streams.

Sun was high on Monday

When swirling Thursday's water

Rode the river past the town

But the river's still with me.

River stays beside me

Though the water's always changing.

Like waters blend, Best of friends.

Best friends last all life.

Best of friends, Next-of-kin.

We'll be best friends for life.

Last Sunday in October

At 2:00 a.m.

All the trains in the nation

Stop right on plan.

It's time to wait for

The return of Standard Time.

But time goes on

No matter what we do,

The clock keeps on ticking

Even when we're through

I think it's time

To talk about time reform.

Metric time

Makes it easy to count

Your days away.

Those powers of ten

Make figuring when

As simple as ...decimal addition.

The basic unit of time

Is still the day.

You say, "Back in a milliday,"

You mean "more than a minute."

Eighty-six point four seconds

To run to the room in back.

A football quarter

Takes a centiday.

The whole game is

Forty millidays of play.

The time clock has no colon,

It just has a decimal point.

Metric time

Makes it easy to count

Your days away.

Those powers of ten

Make remembering when

As simple as ...decimal addition.

The year can't match the sun

Use the kiloday.

Christmas comes once a kiloday

It came too often, anyway.

The downside is:

Teens are middle-aged.

First you drop the months

With crazy lengths you can't remember.

Each hecto has one hundred days

Unusber to December.

The days in a decaday

Are numbered one through ten.

You'll have to wait 'till Nineday to

Have a nice deckend.

And a scheduled dayoff

Is still called a holiday.

chorus

So, I hope you can see

How metric simplifies

It eliminates confusion,

It makes us all wise.

Hear that train whistle,

It must be the nine eighty-two point forty four.

Right on time.

On the Edge

Drinking from a spring

Sleeping in the leaves

Eating shoots and berries

Live among the trees.

Body growing dirty

Body growing lean

Body finding home

Where it happens to be.

On the edge of daylight

On the edge of woods

On the edge of habitation

On the edge of gone for good.

Couple miles an hour

That's fast enough for me

Walking through the mountains

A tunnel through the trees.

Always kind of hungry

Always getting by

Drinking independence

Sheltered by the sky.

So far from city lights

Hardly ever see the stars

Muscle pains, exhaustion

Fast sleep when it gets dark.

Wakened in the night

Hear the possum waddle round

My tent blocks his ramble

A stranger on his ground.

So far from city lights

So far from city life

So far from city schedules

So far from TV Guide

So far from calculations

So far from bank accounts

Where money can't buy nothing

Where you shave off every ounce.

Some edges sharp and well-defined

Like cliffs or knives or mother's scolds.

But I live in fuzzy in-betweens

Where it's hard to tell

What's in the shadows.

Is it magic in the shadows?

Is it love of simple ways

Is fleeing from the tech world

Keeps me hiking every day?

Is it touch with things that matter?

Or disdain for things that don't

Some days I think I'll go back

Some days I think I won't.

All my food and home

Riding in my pack

A smelly but a simple life

I carry on my back.

Sometimes, I hit town for a shower

And a restaurant cooked meal

But soon I'm ready for the woods

And that lonesome outdoor feel.

White was once the color

Of this old wood grey garage

Back behind the farmhouse

Next to the leaning barn.

Decade since the last corn

Neighbor cuts hay once a year.

No more working fields at dawn.

Only wildlife living here.

The smells of clay and gasoline,

Old canvas, rope, and straw

Greet the nostrils of the curious

Who explore the old garage.

Throw back the dusty canvas

Worn out '47 Ford.

Must have been to Richmond

A hundred times or more.

Hey, look up in the rafters:

A cedar-ribbed canoe

With peeling skin and rotted seats

And a hole that goes right through.

The day he caught that catfish,

Camping on the south sandbar,

A childhood eighty years ago,

In the boat above the car.

I still love to drive here

To see the stars at night

Though the city's glow

Is brighter every year.

Hear the barn creak in the summer breeze

Watch the sky for satellites.

Imagine that old farmer standing near.

And the weather, bugs, and fungus

Make the barn lean more each year.

The earth pulls on all things

That stand above.

Neglect surrenders to the wind.

No reason left to stand

Next generation's memories

Will be town and not the land.

When I grow up,

I want to be a cowboy.

Yodel.

Cowboy does what he wants to do

Sleeps under the stars

Rides across the open range

With his horse and guitar.

Spends his hard-earned money

In smokey cowboy bars.

Cowboy, that's the life for me

The All American Hero

Is independent and free

Yodel.

You might be thinkin' John Wayne,

Well, I'm thinkin' it's me.

Yodel.

When I grow up,

I wanna be a politician.

Yodel.

He does what he wants to do.

Tries not to get caught.

Makin' promises and kissing babes,

Thinks he's really hot.

Serving some constiuents

Claiming he's not bought.

Politician, that's the life for me.

The All American Hero

Is independent and free

Yodel.

You might be thinkin' Rostenkowski,

Well, I'm thinkin' that it's me.

Yodel.

When I grow up,

I want to be a CPA.

Yodel//Nunt uh?

When I grow up,

I want to be a folksinger.

Yodel

Folksinger does what he wants to do

Sleeps until 10,

Sings till after midnight

Writes songs now and then

Never has much money

Doesn't matter to him

Folksinger, that's the life for me.

The All American Hero

Is independent and free

Yodel.

You might be thinkin' Woody Guthrie,

Well, I'm thinkin' it's me.

Yodel.

You might be thinkin' John Wayne,

Well, I'm thinkin' it's me.

Yodel.

When gravity

No longer holds you down

In a dream,

You float through the sky.

Past poles and wires

Over roofs and yards

Trying to swim back down

Yelling below to people you know.

Laws of nature

Don't seem to hold anymore.

Time can't keep

All things from happening at once.

An ugly baby,

Beautiful, full-grown,

Launching from the nest, now

Hair blowing behind you

You're on your own.

We all need time to wonder

We need time to sit and stare

At the stars, clouds, and people,

And birds soaring through the air.

When gravity

No longer holds you down

You've come of age,

It's time to fly.

Your dreams will lift you high

Your dreams make the universe

What it might be

When you build your dreams,

Build a room for me.

We all need time to wonder

We need time to sit and stare

At the stars, clouds, and people,

And birds soaring through the air.

When gravity

No longer holds you down

You've come of age,

It's time to fly.