The Cold Acre
There's a place I've been told
And when I grow old I may go there
I've been told that my family's bones
May lie under the snow there
With my little bag, with my little dog
Who sleeps on my chest
When he can't find a hole in a log
When I go, my dog will know
To leave his old fellow and find a new pillow
Far from the chill of the cold acre
Now there's a Hillydale here and a Lilydale there
Where there's joy in the living, voices that ring in the air
I'd stay there but sooner or later I'd have to go
Where I don't know but when a dog knows it's on him
He doesn't ask why he just goes, when I go my bones will know
To pick up and follow the wagon that rolls on the cold acre
My heart is a cold acre and my chest is a cold acre
I don't grow any good anymore though I've seeded my soul
With all kinds of love, that it aches so
Though I wake from them mouthing
They leave me not able to talk
All these dreams are not nightmares
But realms I've been choosing to walk
With my little bag, with my little dog
Who rests on my stomach and barks at the oncoming fog
O but when I go with my lot in tow
Like a vampire carry my piece in the earth
To the place of my death to the plots of my birth
My heart is a cold acre, in my chest is a cold acre
I don't grow any good anymore though I've seeded my soul
With all kinds of love that don't grow in a cold acre
Nothing's cold acre in a cold acre
I don't grow any good anymore from the bad
Except there's one that you have, one that you had
O grow, grow, grow, grow, grow
And plant me in the only place I know that's the cold acre