North Adams

Blacked out window panes
All rotten teeth as I drive by
In my new car
I got a discount rate

A thousand little towns
All peeling paint and furtive eyes
A single store
Maybe I can buy a shirt

Oh Taconic Parkway
You great vein of New England
You taught us how to get upstate
While old Manhattan's sinking
As the sky it darkened
Got a dose of Northern sadness
Rolled up all the windows
And we talked into the blackness

I am five years old
We walk in wooded tunnels
Father, he and I
In coats an extra size
And right out there hе
Told me stories he had drеamed
Of wizards and of ghosts
And in our too big coats

Autumn crunched loud in our ears
Frozen noses winded eyes
New England disappeared
Autumn crunched loud in our ears
Oh I swear I heard it say
I believe I heard them say

Oh small symmetry of
Homes in New England
You brought us from a long sleep
While History was blinking
As the sky it darkened
Got a dose of American sadness
Rolled up all the windows
And we talked into the blackness

There among the trees
A cow sat patiently
And memorized some lines of
Dickinson’s “I Died for Beauty”
Oh Great Parkway
Truth is on your shoulder
If it’s mossy if it’s bare
You’ll find the beauty there

Oh small symmetry of
Rain in New England
You peeled off all the summer heat
And left us some for drinking

As the sky it darkened
Got a dose of Northern sadness
Rolled up all the windows
And we stared into the blackness