Snake Lore Letra

and your cousin was talking about
how your mother bought a thousand neckties for fifty bucks
and was looking for some place to sell them

and the radio played a country song
about a man who had fallen out of grace with god
and now needed something beyond those swinging doors
he was broke down and chained
sold out, spin into ruin
in barrooms

i fell asleep again
and as we passed by a school bus
i fell into dreams

in dreams, i saw a snake whose head had been hacked off
come back together just like that and bite a dog

and i saw my great grandmother ethel in her garden
chopping snakes to pieces with a shovel
and i saw my grandfather hold up a snake to the fire
and when it got close its legs popped out of its sides
like lizard legs, to hold back the flames

and there was the snake who'd milk the cow at night
there was the rattlesnake found frozen stiff by the creek shore
and as it warmed by the fireplace
it began to sing

and i dreamed i saw a snake grow large and long
and spread out across the earth
until it covered the hills and towns and valleys
and became a great river
and it thundered with ships and swimming beasts
and it took men, so men feared the river
and their sons feared the river
and i saw the river became a sea
and then it was a river again
and i saw the river become a stream
and then it was a thin and rocky creek
i saw the creek ice over in the winter
and then fall fast in the spring
and it settled the cracked mud in the depths of summer
come fall it was a snake again
and it moved off into the brush
and was gone