grieving1

- New Living Traditions -

I told my love I loved to drink
My love told me she’d love to lie
But not with a man with the brewer’s stink
And begged my drinking ways to mend
Or our chance for love would surely end
I told my love I’d say good-bye

My love told me to bide the bye
But the scent of beer caused her to think
Of her Grandma left alone to die
When Grandpa came to a stair falls end
With the stink of qhisky as his dripping friend
Leaving his love behind to cry

I told my love I too had heard the lie
Of a drunken father on the brink
Who left just mortgages piled up high
From all the banks who’d agreed to lend
A once rich man his boozer’s spend
For a closet full of empty rye

So for drink and love we ought to try
And help each other not to sink
But use some spirit the best to fly
And use each other the best to mend
Family scars that scartch and rend

So with reasoned measure held on high
Not soaked in liquor nor joyless dry
So please lay with me, and stay my friend

She thought
: : : : : : : : : : then said she’d try.

Finished 20th September 2005. This first appeared in the original Highway to ULL I made at Ullapool. scent in the eight line replaces smell
The second verse is inspired by a passage in The Last English - the Life of J.L.Carr, Byron Rogers. The next verse by my own family history.