Search results for 'Osage River'

Eyes of a Painter

Kate Wolf

Gold in California: A Retrospective of Recordings 1975-1985, Vol. 1 & 2

1986

Gray-haired and flint-eyed, his sunburned face lined
Grandpa was a man of few words
He had a way of not wanting to say
Any more than he thought would be heard

The long years of living, day-to-day giving
Had carved out a map on his face
With little to lose, he’d learned how to choose
And his choices were easy to trace

He had the eyes of a painter
Heart of a maker of songs
His words fell like rain on the dry desert plain
Precious and so quickly gone

From a long line of teachers, white Baptist preachers
He was born with an Indian will
His quiet dark eyes, reading the light
As he rode in the low Osage hills

His school was the prairie, the sage, the wild berry
The quail, the wide open sky
The cottonwood thicket by the slow rolling river
The Redbud and the hot cattle drive

He had the eyes of a painter
Heart of a maker of songs
His words fell like rain on the dry desert plain
Precious and so quickly gone

There were days filled with thinking, nights with the drinking
For a lost love that raged like a storm
Oh, but how his eyes smiled, when he’d talk to a child
The rough hands so gentle and warm

His strong arms were brown, where the long sleeves
Rolled down, on his faded blue cotton shirt
When times got hard, he’d go out in the yard
And he'd cuss away some of his hurt

He had the eyes of a painter
Heart of a maker of songs
His words fell like rain on the dry desert plain
Precious and so quickly gone

Now the garden’s grown dusty, hand axe lies rusty
The door’s banging hard in the wind
Grandpa’s store is closed down, like most of the town
And it won’t be open again

And the big white car, sits out in the yard
Of the house he built solid and true
Oh, but I see his eyes, burning tonight
Like the stars in the sky he once knew

He had the eyes of a painter
Heart of a maker of songs
His words fell like rain on the dry desert plain
Precious and so quickly gone

His words fell like rain on the dry desert plain
Precious and so quickly gone

In the heart of Oklahoma, where the wind whispers free
Lies a land of stories, as far as eyes can see
Where the rivers run wild, and the prairies dance
There's a spirit in the air, you can feel it in a glance
Oh, Oklahoma, where the buffalo roam
And the echoes of ancestors find their home
From the Cherokee hills to the Osage plains
Their legacy forever remains
With pride in their eyes, and courage in their hearts
They faced every challenge, they played every part
Their culture runs deep, like the roots of an oak
In the land of the red man, where dreams never choke
Oh, Oklahoma, where the buffalo roam
And the echoes of ancestors find their home
From the Cherokee hills to the Osage plains
Their legacy forever remains

Gather round the fire, boys, a story I will tell
About a persecution I'm sure you don't know well
An Oklahoma tale of trading land and gems
Goin' down a river that you can't come back up again

Anna Brown was killed in May of '21
They made it look like Anna was just having too much fun
Meanwhile in town they threw a big parade
There stood William Hale and the range war that he waged

Just across the county, on that very day
In a pool of blood did Charles Whitehorn lay
Charles was Anna's cousin, so was Henry Roan
Who died shortly after William Hale made him a loan

William Hale had him a nephew who'd married Mollie Kyle
Mollie was Anna's sister and it sunk in after awhile
In cities across the country all the papers read
"Reign of terror continues, another Indian dead"

Ol' Hickory Andrew Jackson drove 'em down through Tennessee
From Ohio came the Osage the mountains, Cherokee
They left 'em there to wither on that southern Kansas soil
But this was before the man discovered oil

If you come around here with pretty flowers to sow
You might stop and notice nobody's very old
Grass grows so high, it covers up the graves
But listen for a while and it might start givin' names

They called him the king of the Osage Hills
He went and got everybody killed
Now they talk about the weather like it's judgment coming soon
For the killers of the flower moon