Tracks Of Silver

We're a speck on the highway, motel's empty A springboard to journey forth My young ones both took a tank of Bill's gas And burned it on their way up north This town still sits on the mainline Central Union Pacific Time Steady as she goes by, keeping speed Nothing here for the freight line, nothing for me Tracks of silver, rivers of gold Blood down below Dirty levee road When my mother was young she used to dance on tables In the clubs in the desert out west She's got a wit light a straight razor held to your throat And eyes that never rest And at the top of the year when the sky's clear I'd pull her up a chair outside As our minds both wander to the young ones far and wide A picture of longing, wooden frame of pride In the alley street there's a walnut tree That time could not keep still Roots splitting the sidewalk like the long Sierra hills And they'd run their feet through the oil slick creek Keeping rhythm with the rain Lost in the elements, blissful, gritty and plain They're back on my mind with every shift in the winter wind