I lift my eyes and long for green hills
Ever reaching, far, off into the horizon.
There I am reborn, renewed.
Set me down among the trails,
Meanandering through pine and oak
And sweet sugar maple, covered in honeysuckle vine.

I will walk the paths of my fathers,
Breath clean mountain air.
Stopping by a swift-moving creek,
I listen to the water-music
Play over smooth-washed stones,
As my father's father did.

Let me see the sweet red breast of the cardinal
Land on the snow covered pine,
In the total silence of a winter snow-fall.
Let me glimpse the trickle of white, fall
Ever so silent, to a branch below.
The stillness is magical, ethereal.
I walk where my father walked before me.


Who was my father that walked here first?
Did he slip silently through the undergrowth,
Brown skin, a quiver on his back, a warrior,
Strong, proud, giving back as much as he took away?
Was he a farmer, with flaming red hair,
Tilling the soil, with borrowed mule, cursing the rocks,
The rain, and too much sun, carving a living
On the side of a hill?

Was he covered in dust from deep in the hill,
Coughing up blackness, rising at dawn,
Working till dusk, raising his family
From the Company store?
He was strong, to survive in these hills.
He was determined to survive in these hills.
He made music, long into the night,
The music was free, and soothed his soul.
The mountains cried for the music.
They cry for feet to climb the trails
Again, and yes, again, where my father walked.

Always he walked through hills covered in trees
Of green, full of crysle clear streams,
And winter snowfalls, silent and deep.
There, just now, from the corner of my eye,
A shadow, a glimpse, the brush that moves without wind,
Here where my fathers walked before me.