The ballad of White Lady Willow and China Maple Red

The Ballad of White Lady Willow and China Maple Red, Ray Scott I went out this morning and I walked without a mask, to breathe some toll-free-air Beyond a border we all used to share Too fed up with conversation with me, so much better before I was there I wrapped my arms around the wind and I did not even ask And I overheard the garden ghosts at their Monday morning vow of silence sing- along requiem mass We are all trees The soil of dead, it fills the body of the living The breeze seemed haunted, trees were halted, gathered to appease There's just something there that's different Without concealing still revealing Eternal roots are planted in their soft n' sighing song China Maple Red Makin love to his White Willow Bride Weeping on a crying river In a world of blame and worry Half the tree is dead while the other side still grows "My eyes see a woman weeping there," The little child told "Why does she cry so, in his arms?" My young lady, no one seems to know Why, the garden's sinking lower Dyin of thirst, from sky to dirt While in reverse, from head to toe There’s rebirth and everything still flows And she sits in his canoe of hope n trust Just circling while grand rivers quietly turn to dust While the branches in the roving winds a' rowing Goin' round in circles on the water of the now imploding world And all the while he’s only just a lonely traveler, lost up in the skies, oceans, wild wilderness; deep within her vast blue-green and sunflower gold n autumn rust n' cloudy, endless eyes "Explain to me your spirit?" she turned and tossed her hair. ..."Well," White Willow in the small childs' eyes, quietly cleared her throat, she softly sung...to China Red, "Are you filled with the souls of all your dead? Making up your body from your heart in corkscrew roots n veins to wrap around the branches in your head?" "Take me by the maple sleeve of my blustery branches," he bent back and said. "And I'll guide you on my arm, c'mon. I'll carry us on through from where it is where you came from. And I'll stay with you and try to not get lost while we guide each other all the way around the love and death of strife n' life and all the way along..." And I watched them fade so far away while I walked down the steaming road And I still, to this night, cannot shake the sound of their ol’ song With all these people hurtin' people, I’m singin' where did they go wrong? And sometimes when I go out walking Sometimes where I rove I hear that little girl a' weeping, Along with Chineese Maple Red and Lady Willow, Far off down the road And she sings to me the ancient moral, carried in her crying wind and hopefull haunting song, Vanity it is not racist It is just fools making false faces Inside of funhouse mirror mazes Traceless, hollowed forest souls Alone and helpless in lost places Shuffling along