Bayou Psalm

If I slip from this swamp at first pale light,
will your memory still hold my name?
I’m bound for the hidden lakes, the cypress night,
where the water and the wild reclaim.
But if I lingered here in your soft embrace,
the dawn would never taste the same—
I’m a heron stitched to the silver haze,
and no hand can alter this bird’s refrain.
Oh, oh, oh, oh,
no hand can alter this bird’s refrain.
Lord knows, I can’t be tamed.
Farewell, my love, our fire burned sweet and true,
yet the embers won’t let me stay.
Don’t curse the wind that carries me from you—
the fault is mine, and mine to pay.
(Fiddle weeps like a lost loon over black water;
cypress knees rise like prayers from the mud.)
I’ve stalked the mallard through the cathedral mist,
drawn crappie from the moonlit deep of Maurepas,
cured mullet in the slow breath of oak and moss,
drunk white lightning while the pine stars kept us.
Nights around the levee blaze, tales uncoil—
gator eyes burn red in the mirror-dark stream;
my pirogue glides, a ghost among the lilies,
and the river hums the oldest dream.
I’ve heard the bullfrog choir at midnight’s edge,
seen lightning stitch the sky above the cane;
felt the warm mud kiss my bare feet like a pledge,
tasted rain that smells of sugar and of pain.
I’ve watched the heron spear the dawn’s first fish,
tracked the nutria through the tangled green;
set my traps where the cypress roots twist and wish,
pulled gar from waters older than the Queen.
Yet if I anchored here beside your heart,
the wild would wither, the song would fade—
I’m an eagle wheeling high in Louisiana sky,
white head flashing through the cypress shade.
Oh, oh, oh, oh,
white head flashing through the cypress shade.
Lord knows, I can’t be stayed.
I’ve seen the sun bleed gold across the marsh,
heard the wind speak secrets through the reeds;
felt the heartbeat of the swamp—slow, deep, and harsh—
where the heron and the hawk both plant their needs.
I’ve built my fire on a spit of dry land,
roasted duck with pepper and a prayer;
let the smoke curl up like a lover’s hand,
and vanish into the thick, wet air.
I’ve followed the moon down a silvered slough,
where the cypress knees stand like ancient bones;
cast my line where the big bass run true,
and the silence sings in undertones.
But every dawn pulls me farther down the line,
every dusk paints my wings with fire;
I’m stitched to the sky by a wild design,
and no rope of love can bind that wire.
So if I leave this levee, this love, this life,
don’t mourn the shadow that slips away—
I’m an eagle etched in the Louisiana knife
of wind and water and light and clay.
Lord, have mercy—I can’t be stayed.
Won’t you fly high, free bird, yeah.
(Guitar solo rises like heat off the marsh,
accordion sighs like a lover left behind;
the swamp holds its breath,
and the eagle climbs.)

male, female, southern country raw grit, rock, hard rock