The soul, soul is a stubborn thing. Doesn't dissipate so quickly.
Souls remain.
They remain here in the air, in empty space, in dusty roots,
In sidewalks that I knew every single inch of like I knew my own body, as a child,
And in the songs that we sing,
Ya know. That is why we sing.
We sing for our blood and for our people,
Because that's all we have at the end of the day
Each other and, maybe that's what I'm looking for when I go down there,
I just wanna commune with the old spirits,
Stand in their presence, feel their hands on me.
One more time.
Um, anyway, once again I stood in the shadow of my old church ya know, you know what they say about Catholics
Yeah, there's no getting out.
Nah, no, they gotcha, they gotcha, the bastards got ya when the getting was good.
They did their work hard and they did it well,
'Cause the words of a very strange but all too familiar benediction came back to me that evening,
And I wanna tell you these were words that as a kid,
I mumbled these things, I sing-songed them,
I chanted them, bored out of my fucking mind,
In an endless drone before class every fucking day,
Every day the green blazer, the green tie, the green trousers,
The green socks of all of Saint Rose's unwilling disciples, ya know.
But for some damn reason,
As I sat there on my street that night,
Ya know, mourning, mourning my old tree,
And once again surrounded by God,
Those were the words that came back to me
And they flowed differently.
Was "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day, just give us this day
And forgive us our sins, our trespasses,
As we may forgive those who trespass against us,
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, all of us,
Forever and ever, Amen".
And may God bless you, your family, and all those that you love.
And thanks for coming out tonight