Patterson Hood (Untold Pretties)
It started raining just as I dropped her off at her car
The sun was on the cusp of rising and it was still cool from the late winter
But the days were now warming in the spring time
She walked half way to the car then turned around looked at me and smiled
Then ran back to my window as I rolled it down
For her to stick her head in and kiss me one more time
Then ran back in the rain to her car, get in, and drive off
I sat there for a time and the rain started to drizzle into my opened window
Sitting at the parking lot in the southern touch, thinking
As far as I'm concerned it was the last time I ever saw her
On the drive out to the funeral to bury my gran'daddy at the candle snow
Growing up in North Alabama is seldom snow
Sometimes a couple of year would go by
Sometimes it might snow twice in a season
But it was still a novelty
The sky was as gray as an open chord and as plain as the fog in black and white
My gran'daddy always liked snow and somehow I did too
The drive was out the old savannah highway which was still two lane then
We wind around dead man's curve
Where that lady from the sundine bread wrapper was killed in the head on
Back when I was little
Out past our family's farm to the little methodist church
Where once upon a time my grandmother had gone to sunday school
The same humble structure that witnessed their marriage for 42 years
And just a few years ago I'd gone to Youth group
And met that this new foundation camp outs, hail rides and lock ins
Maybe I thought about that sad snowy morning in burying my gran'daddy
Thus few years later, as I drove home in the rain
Home to my fiancee's bed just a few weeks sky of getting married
With the taste of an old high school sweet heart lingering on my lips and fingers
And the rain started pouring down
Out of the sky like a wonderful wrath from God
The God who might smite me even if I turned from his grasp, shine and embrace
I was plooting an escape that I was still a few years away from having the guts to pull off
Years later that realization became a personal hell that followed my around for a while
And then did to many more
You can only carry hell around so long before it gets to be a drag
