Someplace like Heaven

Now the moon looked fine over the shop and shined

just a little bit high in the east.

And the grey winter trees stood silent as thieves

after a long summer’s feast.

And all the dogs barked like signals in the dark

of places where babies were raised

And the pump jack platoons bowed low at the moon

in that oil field trailer camp place.

Won’t you dream me up someplace like heaven?

Cool Mexican nights with no wind.

And let her be there, descending the stairs

where cried when I just to see her ascend.

Now the trailer camp sat surrounded in that

dust like the wind’s residue.

And the children all screamed just to see something green

but those rig engines drowned out their blues.

And the tool pusher hollered. His roughnecks all followed;

he turned and he said to his crew,

Our job it is one that has to be done

and that nobody else will do.

It was late on a Sunday, no different from Monday

except for a small Sunday school.

A gas well came in and killed several men

and scattered equipment and tools.

The perforation gun, weighing a quarter of a ton,

came up from three miles in the well,

went a mile in the sky, clear outta sight

and buried itself where it fell.