Maple Grove

This is a new tune I wrote but have yet to record. It's based on a cemetery about a mile from my house where many of my ancestors are burried.

I have tended Maple Grove for thirty-nine years
Quiet cemetery in the fields northeast of town
Many hours I have labored in sunny silence
Many friends and neighbors I've laid into their graves

Alice Smith, Edgar Jones, old Ray Stevenson
Whose bones filled up with cancer
When he was fifty-nine
Mildred May, her husband Robbie, Jim Evans
Good heavens, has it really been ten years
Since you passed, old Jim?
I remember when you and Betty Anne were married
and bought the farmhouse
out on Old Chicago Road
Now as I cut the grass and pull the weeds
And trim the trees I pray you're pleased
With the way the living world remembers you

Old friend, you rest now beneath the soil
This land's produce filled the bellies of our ancestors
It seems like only days ago
When you were standing next to me

I have tended Maple Grove since I was young and strong
Back when the railroad still came run'n through our town
Now cars go speed'n by out on the highway
While silent headstones whisper wisdom to my ear

They say, "You can burn and bury your dead
Time and time and time again, but that don't mean
They're through with you
The elders of your clan joined us long ago
I hope you listened to them well
Or you may not know just who you are."

And they tell me, "Old man, you stand now upon the soil
And this land's produce filled the bellies of your ancestors.
It may be only days away when the earth receives you back
and you lie below with them."