Backburn

For a change of pace (and because I haven't written more trail song verses yet), I wrote another song on the day I came home from Harper's Ferry.

A backburn is a controlled fire used to eliminate fuel in the path of a larger controlled fire or wild fire. Controlled fires are typically scheduled on managed wilderness land to prevent too much fuel building up over the years. Here it is an analogy for transitions in life.

milk bottles lined up in the heat
drowning in the castle keep
but when it burns you will consume
all the pain they've put you through

wildfire clear it all away
burn to ashes, drink the rain

what climbs up now must come down
feed the body break the vow
but when it breaks we will consume
all the pain we've put us through

forest make us clean
eat the body, grow on me

biggest shoulders biggest share
when i was broken you were there
but when you break i will consume
all the love we've put us through

ocean take you down
through the water, through the ground

over ridges now we fly
up the trail by day and night
but when we land can we consume
all the life we've found anew?

backburn cinders and stone
tame the fire, warm our bones
backburn light our way
in the ashes, now we lay