I met a friend of Spirit
He drank and womanized
And I sat before his sanity
I was holdin' back from cryin'

He saw my complications
And he mirrored me back simplified
And we laughed how our perfection
Would always be denied

'Heart and humor and humility'
He said, 'Will lighten up your heavy load'
I left him then
For the refuge of the roads

I fell in with some drifters
Cast upon a beach town
Winn Dixie cold cuts
And highway hand me downs

And I wound up fixin' dinner
For them and Boston Jim
I well up with affection
Thinkin' back down the roads to then

The nets were overflowin'
In the Gulf of Mexico
They were overflowin'
In the refuge of the roads

There was spring along the ditches
There were good times in the cities
Oh, radiant happiness
It was all so light and easy

Till I started analyzing
And I brought on my old ways
A thunderhead of judgment was
Gatherin' in my gaze

And it made most people nervous
They just didn't wanna know
What I was seein'
In the refuge of the roads

I pulled off into a forest
Crickets clickin' in the ferns
Like a wheel of fortune
I heard my fate turn, turn, turn

And I went runnin' down a white sand road
I was runnin' like a white-assed deer
Runnin' to lose the blues
To the innocence in here

These are the clouds of Michelangelo
Muscular with gods and sungold
Shine on your witness
In the refuge of the roads

In a highway service station
Over the month of June
Was a photograph of the earth
Taken comin' back from the moon

And you couldn't see a city
On that marbled bowling ball
Or a forest or a highway
Or me here least of all

You couldn't see
These cold water restrooms
Or this baggage overload
Westbound and rollin'
Takin' refuge in the roads