The Gift

Lyrics for The Gift

This was after we had buried my father In the soft earth of the Santa Cruz Valley That same graveyard on the hill Where our whole clan will eventually be re-planted And we swung dirges in the midday As the shepherd and his flock dealt with my father They had placed white flowers around his neck But oh, when that first dirt dashed the casket lid No amount of ritual can protect you From that sound when it hits We lit candles upon the tumulus of dirt Which lay heavy upon him Heavier than when I pressed his breastbone in the chapel While outside, beyond the farmlands Deep in the country The river continued to run Not knowing that my father had died And we waited until he was well settled in the dirt before we left And back at the house I started rapping with the cousin with the long, long dread That rap up in a scroll, the one with the Biblical name The one who say he don't communicate by computer This was when we were standing at the gate Ready to leave that house of mourning This was after the jewel bag get bring out And my brother and I had to choose which as heirlooms The silver ring with the raised initials of his name But he laughed and he never told me What those letters spelled when I asked him In 1978 See me walk in the yard Hip in my English waistcoat Tall in the saddle like big scissors cutting And Mama D, Mama D, who also loved him And who could tell you the names of all his children Even those he forgot She was saying, "Look Look how you end up where you is When things could've been so different Well, it's all them prayers and benediction Your people put on you Coming down through generation The hope was you It's the asafoetida the old lady burn All the praise she pray 'til her knees burst open And all those orishas must have conjured some power 'Til her love became a chant to kill death A fetish to protect you on this journey We may live and die But what is between is ours to keep" She gave what she had