Goodbye, Ruby, watch you winding
Down these snake trails that roll like rain drops in the dust
Windy woman, blown my cover
I sit here all alone but I would never sing this kind of song

Wicked dreams
Down drowning streams
Of blood and other wild schemes
That play like mold for the rust

Swallow's wings
And other old and tattered things
The dull and fade of wedding rings
Now this song is one of those

There's fire in these hills, closer every day
The wind calls the hangman to my name
My father said the ocean would beat upon my grave
And that on that day I would long for my home
And it's family stone

Here I am waiting in watercolor gray
I'll wait for you or Jesus or any other technicolor day
Howling dogs at the dust cloud walls
Snapping at the heels of death
To share with them a piece of the catch

I long to see the Banyan trees or any other place
Where the waves are made of thunder
And the seabirds clean the blood from off my feet

Oh, wicked ocean made my heart a beggar
The crabs that ride the jet streams
Are picking out the eyes of my dreams

The fire in these hills gets closer every day
The wind calls the hangman to my name
My brother said the wild world would feed upon my skin
And that on that day I would long for the farm
And an honest simple faith

The majesty of insect wings
And the brittle of their bones
Reminds me of a tropic wind
Blowing through the skull of our home

Ruby, I chased your laughter with elephant wings
You left me for the law
Left me bones for the grave

Childish beauty, Sunday charm
All has made a ghost of me, spirit dead, shackled arms
As I hung the wind whipped your wild name
And pierced the heart of a fading ghost
For seabirds only death upon the plain

The blood that beats this heart is blood upon the floor
Ruby you lead the hangman to my door
My mother said a woman would be the death of me
And that on that day no god would hear
An outlaw's dying prayer