A Little Day Left

The sun is sinking, but there's a little day left. When Steven Kapp Perry and I wrote the musical "Take the Mountain Down" in 2007 (a bluegrass treatment of the parable of the Prodigal Son), the title song was just a chorus. It felt like a full song on stage, because it was sung first, slowly and with just guitar, by the father (me), and then the tempo gradually picked up and the prodigal son (Sam Payne) joined on a repeat of the chorus. And it's a long chorus. But even then I wanted there to be a verse someday. It's time.

I'll type the chorus here, and then this evening's verse.

Let me take the mountain down

that stands between your heart and mine.

Let me shake it to the ground

and let our lives in love entwine.

Oh wrap the sweet forgiveness 'round

about your worn and weary bones.

Let me take the mountain down

and have my lost lamb safe at home.

Verse:

The Spirit grows like a cloud over the plain,

then the rain it falls on down on hard, hard ground.

The Spirit glows like a moon over my pain

and, like the grain, it sways around and around and around.

The Spirit shouts like a beacon on the hill,

like a million colors rising in the sky.

I have to laugh as the Spirit tears apart

all the gray that filled my heart on the day you said goodbye.

(I think I'd better quit now and move the hose and play with my kids. It's been a long day, and I don't know if more than three blog posts a day are allowed.)