NORTHERN COUNTY

(Timothy Brickley and David Rheins)

She came from a northern county

where people don’t have a lot to say

about they way they are living or they way they will die.

She moved down to this semi-city

where people try to talk about what they feel,

which isn’t always anything worth talking about tonight.

    She came from a northern county

    and stares into the wild, dark night.

    She looks at me with understanding,

    all that ends well ends tonight.

We turn our back on second childhood,

when god was good and fair was fair

and people could be counted on with flowers in their hair.

Now little kids in leather and dog jewelry

dance this dance of disarray

but no-one reads the paper and don’t have much to say.

    But she came from a northern county

    and knows that nowhere is the best.

    You can’t change what never happened

    but you can play with the rest.

(One night she told me:

  we could be anywhere.

  Time is a circle and we are there.

  This could be anywhere, anywhere.

  All you got to know is you are

   there.)

She came from a northern county

where the land is flat and it’s always grey.

If you don’t face your monster

it won’t pack up and go away, away, away…

She came from a northern county.

                                                                     Copyright 1986, Timothy Brickley & David Rheins.