two young sisters are walking alone
|
by the pale muddy waters
|
two young sisters are walking alone
|
by the pale muddy waters of Onion town
|
|
when one of them pushed the younger in
|
into the cold rain waters
|
pushed her sister and watched her drown
|
in the cold muddy froth on the river
|
|
and she floated up and she floated down
|
to pale she was as the water
|
floated down till she washed down shore
|
on the pale muddy banks of Onion town
|
|
with wolves by night and the sun by day
|
nothing was left but bones and hair
|
bones and hair which are both more fair
|
than the pale muddy banks of the river
|
|
Luke, his son was deaf in rain
|
carried her home, her tiny frame
|
father father I hear her cry
|
"how can that be?" he said, "bones don't cry" he said
|
besides you're deaf
|
|
but he thought there must be something to these bones
|
so he made a fiddle out of her breast bone
|
made some pegs out of her finger bone
|
made a bow out of her leg bone
|
and from her yellow hair he strum
|
the strings that would have her story sung
|
and sometime later...
|
|
one old woman was walking alone
|
by the pale muddy waters
|
she heard the strings of the sweet fiddle cry
|
"Cruel sister, why have you drowned me?"
|
|
upon her rock the deaf boy played
|
oh the bows of Onion
|
and into the water the cruel sister ran
|
but she sank just like any old stone
|
|
-----------------
|
Two Sisters
|
Andrew Bird |