Wild Birds 

by Kate MacLeod, recorded on Where Blue Meets Blue and Skeins.

Kate MacLeod has a version on Memorial Day, American Impressionist Songwriters Volume 2, and another on Feel the Earth Spin, on the Windriver label. The middle verse is like an M.C. Escher painting, with the narrator having us imagine her imagining what the old man is imagining. 

This old house has been around a long time, 
Been around a long time, long as I can remember; 
This old road, it used to be a cowpath, 
Then it was a dirt road, then they paved it over. 

Sometimes the past, it haunts me, 
How the years, they escape me; 
But how I love to walk the streets and see the wild birds 
Where you can be a wild bird still. 

Old man Richard's been around a long time, 
Now he rocks a front porch, smokes another Tiparillo; 
Watches the children climbing on the diesels, 
Someday he'll have to move them, put 'em in a museum. 

Sometimes the past, it haunts me,  
How the years, they escape me;  
But how I love to walk the streets and see the wild birds  
Where you can be a wild bird still.

This old town has been around a long time, 
Seen the river rising, lost a corporation; 
Drive across it in no time, cup of coffee at the cafe, 
Gain a reputation. 

Sometimes the past, it haunts me,  
How the years, they escape me;  
But how I love to walk the streets and see the wild birds  
Where you can be a wild bird still.