Holler Bend

Instrumental Intro

(Slide guitar moans like a wounded thing)

Verse 1

Moss hangs heavy from the oak

Moonlight tangled in the smoke

Down the holler where the creek runs thin

Something howls beneath the skin

Your dress still hanging on the line

Ghost-white cotton, dried in brine

I smell the rain before it breaks

Feel the earth begin to shake

Pre-Chorus

Roots will hold what roots can reach

But some things language cannot preach

Chorus

Shadows where you used to stand

Footprints filling up with sand

Fiddle keens a lonely note

Sawdust in my ragged throat

Every lantern that I light

Burns against the swampy night

I keep calling through the bend

For a love that has no end

Verse 2

Church bell cracked at half past three

Never rang for you or me

Graveyard gate is swung on rust

Prayers dissolve to wine and dust

Preacher's words like brittle straw

Shatter on the courthouse floor

But your laughter's sharp and red

Rattling inside my head

Pre-Chorus

Harmonica cries down that long dirt track

But nothing ever brings you back

Chorus

Shadows where you used to stand

Footprints filling up with sand

Fiddle keens a lonely note

Sawdust in my ragged throat

Every lantern that I light

Burns against the swampy night

I keep calling through the bend

For a love that has no end

Bridge

Cello sighs beneath the moon

Cricket scratch a ragged tune

Maybe souls just wander slow

Through the places that they know

But I swear I felt your hand

Brushing through the Spanish moss

One more mile one more loss

Down this holler in the loam

I'll find my way back home

Final Chorus

Shadows where you used to stand

Leaning into different land

Fiddle wails a final note

Rattling in my hollow throat

Let the lantern gutter low

Let the muddy river flow

I go walking through the bend

Where your memory won't end