The Turnaround Road

Cars, three-point turns make pentagrams in the dirt
At the end of the road where I sit in the morning
The weeks have been hazy but something is changing
I watched the sun convince the weakest cloud to let it through
It said "I would have gone crooked but for you"
There's a sticky orange vine here
And it grows over everything
I don't know what they call it
I call it 'Darling Creeper'
I give names to the flora and to the fauna
Most descriptive of their character to me
And there's snakes I have been warned about
There's rattlers in this roundabout
They come in from the chaparral
They corral me on the gravel now
But I like it when I'm sitting with things around me moving
It may look like I'm brooding
Like I'm getting not much done
But oh! there is a cure here
The light is very pure here
I'm gathering my strength like a consumptive in the sun
And I would have gone crooked but for you, but for you
I would have gone crooked but for you
I would have gone crooked but for you, but for you
I would have gone crooked
Some zen artist left his red rock garden
In the turnaround road where I sit in the morning
It gets kicked around the cul-de-sac
By those who go and double back
As if there is no thoroughfare in absence of a beaten track
And red ants are moving with their sick and withered comrades
They carry the bodies of the withered in their mouths
Because it is no big deal
Hey, what else is there to do
The withered one is singin' to his friend whose mouth is full of him / hymn*
(*live alternate lyric)
Oh I would have gone crooked but for you, but for you
I would have gone crooked but for you
Oh I would have gone crooked but for you, but for you
Oh I would have gone crooked
And I don't think I even knew before now
Hey I feel steady and I feel good
Light and emptied of last night's food
There's a mountain ahead
When I'm ready to go up from the edge of the turnaround road
Cars three-point turns make mandalas in the dirt
At the end of the road where I sit in the morning
The weeks have been hazy but something is changing
I watched the sun convince the smallest cloud to let it through
It said "I would have gone crooked but for you"
I would have gone crooked but for you