Maria Sugarcane

In the south end of the county Near the highway and the trains There's a river long since dried up But a river just the same When I was just a boy I would the lie there on its banks With my brother and the summer And Maria Sugarcane And my brother was born shaky And he wore our father's rage And he stumbled through the autumn Underneath the winter's weight And he rode a motorcycle That he'd drive down to the banks Of the river in the summer With Maria Sugarcane And how they loved each other And that love was wild as hope And none would come between them But my father's wandering ghost And I had seen him beat her Time and time before But as I loved my brother I loved Maria so much more Well, I loved her young and pretty And I loved her wild and strong And I'd never loved another I'd loved her for so long And never would I hurt her Never see her meet with harm When I told her how I'd found him She fell into my arms Well, I told her how I'd found him Down there by the river banks That the angels were around him But that I was just too late And they carried him off to heaven With my father's sins and all But I did not hear the shot And I did not see him fall And Maria loved my brother With her purest, bluest eyes And he carried it in paper And it never left his side And I married her two summers past The year my brother died And though sometimes I hear her I've never seen her cry And I know Maria loves me But it just ain't the same As the way she loved my brother In those summers on the banks Of the river long since dried up Maria Sugarcane In the south end of the county Near the highway and the trains In the south end of the county Near the highway and the trains There's a river long since dried up But a river just the same And that's where I found my brother And Maria's one true love I knew that I would kill him And Maria, she would come In the corner of the graveyard Near the spot my brother lays Far past the noble families Two more plots are saved When I and fair Maria Have seen our final days May they bury her between us Maria Sugarcane