When the frost is on the gargoyles
and the pumpkins are painted black
and the bats dart all round me
I stare into my final night
and peer into the past
I look over the vastness
of 70 years lived
on the road with friends
and I whisper hallelujah
then recite
the bone man dances circles
round the subterranean gloom
paints pink and blue and purple
until he fills the doom
with the smell of roses
and a pandemonium moon
I'm feeling fiddle fit as I hear
The Devil Went Down to Georgia
I stare at faces in the trees
as stars shine through fall leaves
the wide winged owl
sweeps a foot above my head
and says who who
who are you
then in the wolf light
of early morning
I pray the sun
will greet me soon
and then I'll walk
along the mighty river
one more time
with my gypsy dog
and I'll write a final poem
and sing one more forlorn song
before I bid farewell
and say thank you friends
for this fair and good life
now come and gone
for my dears the time
will have arrived
at long last
to bid you all
my final
sweet goodbye
