The Quiet Country

[Verse 1]
The room keeps talking, but it don’t say a thing;
I’ve spent my whole life listening for the wires.
A harmonica sighs where the old doors swing,
While the fiddles stitch up the telephone wires.
At sixty, I know every face by its cause—
And every clean hand that came back with claws.

[Chorus]
So I leave my chair turned toward the wall,
Let the young men name what they won’t recall.
The road knows my boots; the town knows my name—
But neither one asks me to stay the same.

[Verse 2]
I carried their leaflets through rain and smoke,
Kept a place at the table for those shut out.
Now the speeches are polished, the promises broke,
And nobody hears what the bells are about.
I fold up the map with its corners worn thin,
There’s a quieter country I might still walk in.

[Bridge]
No flag falls down, no trumpet sounds;
Just one old man stepping off these grounds.

[Outro]
The strings keep their counsel, the harmonica knows—
Some doors don’t slam; they simply close.