Freedom of the Snow

By Leslie Fish

from the album,

FIRESTORM- Songs of the Third World War

 

We were twenty pampered maidens
under dormatory glass
Gossipping about boyfriends, dates and cloths.
 
We glanced through the taistfull windows
at the growing storm outside
and never once took messure of the snows.
 
Long past the time of night
We found no morning light.
Blizzard covered all the world we'd known.
Beyond all reach off law
we looked around and saw
The ice age come and left us all alone.
*
 
Cancel my salvation
Give me leave to go
Back to the freedom of the snow
of the snow
Back to the freedom of the snow.
*
 
As darkness, cold and blizzard
closed around our cringing cave
we wore our furs for better things than show.
 
We melted snow for water
when the pipes and the fuel lines froze
and thanked the gods for the stores of food, below.
 
The furnace coughed and died.
We lit a fire and cryed.
We didn't have the wood to last the day.
 
So we played a hand or three
and the high card fell on me
so I took and axe and went to find a way.
*
 
Cancel my salvation
Give me leave to go
Back to the freedom of the snow
of the snow
Back to the freedom of the snow.
*
 
I found a tree blown over
where the driveway use to be
and the axe flew swift and easy as a flame.
 
I wasn't cold or wery.
It was strange to be so free-
Then out of the dark that junky came.
 
He didn't seem to know
I was a changeling of the snow
and not the easy peace-time girl he thought he'd found.
 
The axe swong clean and high
and it cought him through the eye-
I took my wood and left him on the ground.
*
 
Cancel my salvation
Give me leave to go
Back to the freedom of the snow
of the snow
Back to the freedom of the snow.
*
 
We dreemed about this story
as we camped beside the fire.
We sang it while we hunted through the day.
 
Until the hour our sentry
saw the snowplow clear the road
and our families came to chase the spell away.
 
So go back to your shopping mall,
go find yourself a man-
Go forget that you were ever strong or free.
 
But in dreams I see them still;
the blizzard on the hill,
The fireplace and the fire axe and the tree.
*
 
Cancel my salvation
Give me leave to go
Back to the freedom of the snow
of the snow
Back to the freedom of the snow.
*