Empty Glass


Takes two days to cross Nebraska
Give or take a year
A lifetime's worth of cigarettes twice that many beers

He's driving east
His tail between his legs
He's lost the highway itch
His wanderlust died years ago
He left it rotting in a ditch

Rain clouds in the rearview
Radio playing low
Two million miles behind him
A million miles to go

There's no Hank or Merle or Johnny now
You can't hear them anymore
Just redneck clowns with stupid hats
And young girls dressed as whores

And they grind them out like sausages
They all sound much the same
There's no room for him on the radio
He never learned to play the game
He pulled over towards evening
In a quiet Midwest town
Just a motel and a watertower
Cornfields all around

A fat man with blue marine tattoos
Showed him to his room
He put his guitar and his satchel down
Sat there in the gloom

And a dog barked down the street
He saw fresh laundry on a line
Next door a couple was making love
Somewhere a baby was crying

Another drink would go good now
One drink and then one more
Maybe, one more just for luck
No one's keeping score

He lay back in the darkness
On the narrow motel bed
He closed his eyes and heard the music still
Playing in his head
And a moth beat on the window screen
His breath grew soft and slow
He dreamt about a time and place
So many years ago

Cool mornings under cloudless skies
Barefoot on the grass
Looking at the world with hungry eyes
Nose pressed against the glass

In the cornfields around the town
A million fireflies rose
Dancing winking in the dark
As the day drew to a close

And so in clouds their numbers grew
And their ghostly light grew too
As through the dark and empty streets
Towards his room they flew
They flew in through his open door
Above the bed where still he lay
They gently lifted him aloft
And carried him away

And they floated him above the church
And the roofs of the little town
They carried him out into the dark
And gently set him down

And bit by bit and by and by
As the fireflies shone their light
The old singer disappeared
Into the breathing night

The motel maid tapped on the door
Next morning with her key
She swung it wide, looked inside
All that she could see

Was a guitar and empty glass
A satchel on the bed
And the imprint on the pillow
Where he had laid his head

The wind blows warm from Kansas
Thorough empty silent hills
Seasons come seasons go
As seasons always will

Somewhere where the waves of grass
Stretch on out of sight
His songs are on the prairie wind
Faintly in the night.



Garnet Rogers