Call It A Day

I spent the morning with my father Fishing for lake trout in the stream We caught nothing but the north wind And a hand full of rainbow colored dreams He smoked the pipe my grandpa gave him I chewed a blade of long-stemmed grass The water clear as the future The fish as hungry as the past A storm rolled in above the mountains And from the far bank he did say Looks like the good Lord wants us somewhere else I guess we’ll call it a day Working figures in the lamp light Lining up ciphers on the page His neck was red as the clay soil His forehead pale as the sage He’d shave his pencils with a jack-knife He kept our savings in a jar He knew the shortness of a dollar bill He knew a little could go far And when the bankers came one evening And there was not enough to pay, He said, Looks like the good Lord wants us somewhere else I guess we’ll call it a day One day I saw him by the barn door Lean his whole weight upon the latch Thin as a weather-beaten split-rail Light as a burned-out kitchen match He’d spent his days, he’d spent his body He didn’t know no other way What you hold back in your livin’ son He said, you’ll only waste upon your grave And when his body finally gave out I knew exactly what he’d say Looks like the good Lord wants me somewhere else, son, I guess I’ll call it a day... Looks like the good Lord wants me somewhere else, son, I guess I’ll call it a day.