Fears/Hopes Poem by rich soos

fears

i
my wife will feel like
dancing at the Water Hole
the night I get home

ii
I will have to say
something to my wife and kids
so they'll know I live

iii
they cannot know me
or the person I've become
or I'll kill myself

iv
I'll have to pretend
I'm really blind and deaf mute
so I can survive

v
it would be easy
to start walking to Utah
and live by myself


hopes

i
I pray it's all good
when I look deep in their eyes
I'll forget my past

ii
no questions will come
no memories will survive
no tears in my dreams

iii
I'll sing to my wife
and the shape of her dress will
pull my fiddle out

iv
nightmares will go home
to villages that birthed them
and I'll sleep in peace

v
that the Lord forgives
the way preacher Davies
always says he does



from Fiddlin' Around (2003)