ANGELINE

Angeline, Angeline
darker nights I've never seen
I don't love these East Texas pines
where I can't find my sleep
in the shadows so deep
dark as these doubts in my mind


slow train down the tressle goin East 'cross the Neches
like the one I got off of a long time ago
outside of a little town where I never meant to settle down
not knowing the seeds I would sow

barefoot in the autumn weeds, cotton dress hanging to your knees
to the eyes of a stranger you offered a smile
I went to work in your daddy's fields didn't seem like such a bad deal
least it would do for awhile


we were both young and unabashed we took what life offered
when the folks were distracted or too tired to care
with a frost on the land the fates forced our hand
your dresses fit tighter with the spring in the air


now I watch the trains rattle on from the seat of the tractor
your daddy's old harness still hangs in the barn
and your mama don't like it that our children all scattered
she swears its my blood
it was not meant to farm


and you and I don't talk alot; we don't really have to
we spent many years reading each other's mind
we used up the lightning now we don't bother fighting
such things will happen in time

Angeline, Angeline
darker nights I've never seen
I don't love these East Texas pines
where I can't find my sleep
in the shadows so deep
dark as these doubts in my mind


james mcmurtry


If ever I'd like to plagarize a song this would be it. Down in East Texas there is the Angeline National Forest, an almost inpenetrable pine thicket where the quiet can almost be deafening and the stars and moon are lost in the tall canopies, creating a darker night than you have ever seen. There is the Angelina River, and the Neches too,  that McMurtry references, with weatherbeaten barns and scattered families, broken down tractors and battered old harnesses, and the Neches just runs silently through the whispering pines.
Unlike McMurtry, I dearly do love those pines.
My mama's side is from down there, and he could be singing about them. Quiet people, capable of sitting in a room or on a porch for hours at atime without saying a word, fully content with their lot.
"Such things will happen in time."