that would be a trick

the eve of my departure on that morning so long past
sixty souls were taken in the Tumbler Mountain blast
shaken from the shores they knew, disaster come to pass
though I was but one of them, it was I who lit the gas

and now I am a spirit, and now I am a wraith
I can't be damned, I can't be saved, I never kept the faith
Now I am a rambler, I go from land to land
Now I am a follower, a lantern in my hand

I follow them in meadows, and I follow them in downs
I skate upon the shadows in their frail little towns
I follow all their nephews, and bother all their wives
I put my clammy hands upon the ropes that pull their lives

I follow all their grand-kids with their strangely colored jeans
Their mullets and their levers and their digital machines
I'll drag upon the pulleys, I'll be twisting on their fates
their oddly mottled children with the parsnips on their plates

I'll wither all their cotton, and I'll wither all their limbs
sound the devils' chording in their holiest of hymns
a curse upon their gerbils and a curse upon their dog
I peel the paint and varnishes and vanish in the fog

and now I am a nightmare, and now I am a dream
as sure as there is suffering, I can never be redeemed
trouble from the great beyond, trouble for the quick
to know your own and pay your bones, now that would be a trick