Old Blue
He sleeps now more than he wakes,
his muzzle gray as winter birch,
his body a country he’s leaving
one province at a time.He chose me from thirty-six.
Walked up. Looked me level.
I’m the one.
Thirteen years later, he still is.His head in my lap was a sermon
I never had to earn —
the gospel of showing up,
of staying in the room.The couch he can’t reach anymore
still holds his shape.
The ramp we built
is an act of prayer.Dog is God spelled backwards.
I didn’t read that somewhere.
I learned it on the floor
with my hand on his head.The shovel’s by the door.
The stakes are in the ground.
But not today.
Not today.
Y’ Know Death Don’t Have No Mercy In This Land
Death Don’t Have No Mercy In This Land, In This Land
Come To Your House, You Know He Don’t Take Long
Look In Bed This Morning, Children Find Your Mother Gone.I Said Death Don’t Have No Mercy In This Land.
Death Will Leave You Standing And Crying In This Land,
Death Will Leave You Standing And Crying In This Land, In This Land, Yeah!Whoa! Come To Your House, Y’ Know He Don’t Stay Long,
Y’ Look In Bed This Morning,
Children You Find That Your Brothers And Sisters Are Gone.
I Said Death Don’t Have No Mercy In This Land.Death Will Go In Any Family In This Land.
Death Will Go In Any Family In This Land.
Come To Your House, you know he don’t take long.
Look in the bed on the morning, Children Find That Your Family’s Gone.I Said Death Don’t Have No Mercy In This Land.
Death Will Leave You Standing And Crying In This Land,
In This Land. Whoa! Come To Your House,
Y’ Know It Don’t Stay Long, Y’ Look In Bed This Morning,
Children Find That Your Brothers And Sisters Are Gone.I Said Death Don’t, Death Don’t Have No Mercy In This Land.
Played by the Grateful Dead in the 1960s but then dropped until they revived it a few times in 1989-90. This is the 1960s version, with Garcia singing all the verses.
“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now
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