No Provenance Allelu, allelu I have died happy And lived to tell the tale to you I have slept for forty years And woke to find me gone I woke safe and warm in your arms In your arms, your arms, in your arms Not informed of the natural law Squatting, lordly, on a stool, in a stall We spun gold clear out of straw And, when our bales of bullion were stored You burned me like a barn I burned safe and warm in your arms In your arms, your arms I'm afraid of the Big Return There's a certain conversation lost And that loss incurred With nobody remaining To register who had passed this way In the night, in the middle of the night Negating their grace and their sight Till only I remember, or mark How we had our talk We took our ride So that there was no-one home And the lights of Rome Flickered and died And, what's more I believe that you knew it, too I think you saw their flares And kept me safely unawares In your arms, your arms, in your arms The grass was tall, and strung with burrs I essayed that high sashay Which in my mind, was my way You hung behind, in yours Anyhow, she did not neigh I do not know What drew our eyes to hers That little black mare did not stir Till I lay down in your arms Poor old dirty little dog-size horse Swaying and wheezing As a matter of course Swaying and wheezing As a matter of pride That poor old nag Not four palms wide Had waited a long time Coated in salt Buckled like a ship Run foul of the fence In the middle of the night She'd sprung up No provenance Bearing the whites of her eyes And you, with your 'arrangement' with Fate Nodded sadly at her lame assault On that steady old gate Her faultlessly etiolated fishbelly-face The muzzle of a ghost And, pretty Johnny Appleseed Via satellite feed Tell us, who was it that you then loved the most Pretty Johnny Appleseed Leave a trail that leads Straight back down to the farm Lay me down safe and warm in your arms In your arms