Carrie Newcomer

When Adam when out to name the animals He sat on a rock and he figured, Horse and cow and goat and sheep, Were the best names that he could deliver. But Eve looked around at all of that glory, Said Hon I think we should consider, Something a bit more unique an...

Cal made the long table for his bride June When the first child was born and they needed more room Cal was one of four sons, and there was too little farm And the railroad had work so they moved into town First came Emmet and Clara, William and Grace Aro...

It's four in the morning, the last dregs of the evening. I sit and rock on the front porch swing, ‘til the morning sky starts bleeding. It is cool and it's quiet, bats and owls lay down beside it. Mourning doves breathe a sigh, as the shadow passes by. Chorus:...

There's a ring around the moon, There's a chill in the air. There's a mean kind of justice, Coming down coming down. Angels wring their hands and put ashes on their heads. There's a mean kind of justice coming down. It don't ever stop a thing, An eye for eye,...

A shovel is a prayer To the farmer's foot When he steps down And the soft earth gives way A baby is a prayer When it's finally asleep A whispered, “Amen” At the end of the day And a friend is a prayer When they bring over soup When they laugh at you...

There has never been a day When the world wasn't new, When the sun didn't rise, Or the light breaks on through. Things might get a little worse, Before they get a little better. But there are always clearer skies, Stretching out beyond bad weather and The worl...

The way is dark up ahead of me. The way is dark and I cannot see. What I love the most is a flashlight beam, Lighting up the way when I cannot see. The way unfolds like an open hand. The way unfolds like I didn’t plan. And only in looking back do we understan...

Sometimes you just close your eyes and jump You don't think to long Or maybe you just won't Sometimes you just follow your heart Don't analyze to long Or maybe it might just be gone You've got a whole lot of hope You've been keeping in your pocket safe...

I saw the ocean stretch like fabric Like fine silk out on the sea A moving scarf of light and water Forever changing me Verse: I heard singing in the evening As the sky turned indigo Each beating heart, plays a different part In a hope that won't let g...

He said, "My name is Gabrielle Thomas, I blew in from out of town. My work keeps me on the road, but it's the best job that I've found. I don't mind the silence or the Super 8 Motel, And I've never met a person yet without a tale to tell." He said, "I know...

Here I am without a message Here I stand with empty hands Just a spirit tired of wandering Like a stranger in this land Walking wide eyed through this world Is the only way I've known Wrapped in hope and good intentions Bare to the bone There is noth...

The dust settles after a hit and run Bewildered by the damage done I don’t know why we choose the roads we travel Or how a life could get so unraveled. Chorus: We live our lives from then until now, By the mercy received and the marks on our brow To my heart...

Miranda works the late night counter, in a joint called betty's Diner. Chrome and checkered tablecloths and one steamy windowpane. She got the job that shaky fall, and after hours she'll write till Dawn. With a nod and smile she serves them all. Chorus:...

Daniel said traveling risky But the money awful good. When I get back we can finally Get ahead sure we could. He left the fifth of December Took our oldest boy Ben. I packed them biscuits and butter, And never saw them again. Chorus How can I keep on walking,...

To live we learn what we love lost Embrace it all and hold it close Breathe it in and breathe it out Let it go To live is to love so many things To fly on beautiful wax wings Breathe it in and breathe it out Let it go Breathe in, breathe out Let it...

A ceaseless wind blows without mercy I pull my jacket tighter These boots are old But they're still trustworthy To take me somewhere higher Will you come with me to the ridge top? Lay all your burdens bare Right there There I miss you like a typewri...

There have been too many leavings to list in one place. Too many arrivals to ever retrace And all who have wandered have not fallen from grace, Just done a few things they’d like to erase, And met with their shadows face to face. Up on the ridge top a coy dog...

John Roth had a heart like flame, he believed all souls were loved the same. He packed up his hopes and his family and moved to Ohio. There in the deep dark wilderness, with a newborn son he soon was blessed. Raised him up in the ways of the old prophets, and...

This is a story a very sad tale Of intrigue and romance and electronic mail A dangerous form of information, and the perils of instant gratification How many times did I hit my Mac want to crawl inside and take the whole thing back But its no use say it again...

It started with a dream as most things new From an unformed thought when it’s time was due Out of eternal night where no dawn broke, Came a pale new light and the dreamer woke. In moments clean and clear the echo bounces back, With a lonesome sound down...

There were lentils, rice and hot-spiced tea, The sunset on the Arabian Sea, Women swayed in yellows, blues and greens, The finest thing I've seen. There’s rhythm to the rains they come and go, I heard Bollywood and Dylan on the radio, The driver’s quoti...

You can't always tell one from another. And it's best not to judge a book by it tattered cover. I have found when I tried or looked deeper inside. What appears unadorned might be wondrously formed. You can't always tell but sometimes you just know. `Round here...

There’s a light in the darkness just barely out of view From the corner of your vision it beckons to you. After the crops have all come in amid the stubble and the chaff Keep on walking when it whispers and don’t look back. Some say it's the Ghost Train's hea...

I am learning to walk with grace in the dark I am learning to trust and to lead with my heart When the old moon is gone into silence and sighs It's the one and only time a new moon can rise Sometimes there is no reason, the moon waxes and wanes It was th...

Holy as a day is spent Holy is the dish and drain The soap and sink, and the cup and plate And the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile Shower heads and good dry towels And frying eggs sound like psalms With bits of salt measured in my palm It's al...

You can rest your head upon my heart, And we'll curl into a question mark, And I’ll hold you in the arms of Hush, And love will have to be enough. There’s a time laugh and a time to grieve A time to speak and a time to breathe. Let the silence be the place we...

I believe there are some debts that we can never repay And I believe there are some words that we can never unsay And I don’t know a single soul Who didn’t get lost along the way I believe in socks and gloves Knit out of soft great wool And that there’s...

He leaned and whispered as he turned the page, And he said "Make yourself into a flame" A crazy old lion with his hair all backlit, Grinnin’ like a little boy who has a secret. Chorus: I do not know its name ‘Though it’s ever intertwining, And I believe it m...

I meant to do my work today, So many plans I had made. I’d check the mail, I’d make the calls Save the world and sweep the hall, Finally get my accounting done, Sort the beans one by one, But I got waylaid by the morning sun. And I got absolutely nothing done....

Sweet Corn Days in Oakland City, The Apple Fest in Nappanee, The Blueberry Cavalcade, The Sacred Heart Polish Days, Oktoberfest in Rensselaer, Marshmallow Days in Ligonier, The Feast of the Hunter’s Moon, The Pork and Pumpkin Rendezvous. Chorus: At this year...

If not now, tell me when If not now, tell me when. We may never see this moment Or place in time again If not now, if not now, tell me when. I see sorrow and trouble in this land I see sorrow and trouble in this land Although there will be struggle we’ll make...

Now that he's gone Now the world has moved on Since he called my name Nothings the same. As my sister cried He said, "Lazarus rise." To love and anoint Or just prove a point Chorus I'm the one that he saved I'm the one that he raised From a dark quiet sleep fr...

Winter is the oldest season But quietly beneath the snow Seeds are stretching out and reaching Faithful as the morning glow Carry nothing but what you must Lean in toward the Light Let it go, shake off the dust Lean in toward the Light Today is now, t...

The truth I knew when I was eight. My dad swam the length of Spirit Lake. It must have been a million miles. ThisI knew was true. My mother sang while hangin' clothes. Her notes weren't perfect heaven knows. But heaven opened anyway. And this I knew was true....

May you bless the place you live, And bless the spot you fell, And let go of hidden stories, Too dangerous to tell. Let there be no stones to throw, And someone to watch your back, And some prayers be never be answered, For the things we think we lack....

Let me call you darlin', maybe call you sweetheart Don't you hate it when they call you Louise But isn't it scary, when they want to call you Mary A whore, or a saint, or a tease. But you came here in summer, you'd been living in Manhattan You caught me w...

Martha walked right down to the dam, I hoe and a shovel in either hand. She was bound to dig for every woman and man, And child that lay sick with fever. The government men said, “Be our favorite sons, Be a place of worth some where and someone. If you drown t...

Will you be my refuge My haven in the storm Will you keep the embers warm When my fire’s all but gone? Will you remember And bring me sprigs of rosemary Be my sanctuary ’Til I can carry on Carry on Carry on This one knocked me to the ground This on...

Draw a circle of love, draw a circle of light, There are songs on the air like birds in flight. Said the finger to the moon and the moon to the door, “There’s a light shining from the farthest shore.” Shining, shining down, Shining, all around Rising, u...

When the evening like a sparrow Folds down it's small wings All the light bones and the feathers of the day It is then in that moment Stop the rushing and just hold me Lay your hands where it hurts And we'll leave it that way I have often dreamt of ang...

There’s a crack in the glass where the water gets out. There’s a dusty wind when the heart's in drought. And the map of the world looks as if true north, Disappeared entirely. I can live divided or bent Conspire in my own diminishment Or believe in the better...

Spring is humming Bits of something A melody the simple part A song that I once knew by heart Juniper, wild indigo Foxglove, lupine, Queen Ann’s lace Will be coming any day The restlessness The quickening The almost but Not yet Muddy boots, last...

First there is the folding in, To gather light and dark to you. The journey down so far that it, Has nowhere else to go but through. I thought if I tried hard enough, With endless motion like a bribe, As if by this the will of God, Could be bent to my version...

Let it go my love, my truest Let it sail on silver wings Life's a twinkling and that's for certain But it's such a fine thing There's a gathering of spirits There's a festival of friends And we'll take up where we left off When we all meet again I ca...

I found her sleeping in a Kansas truck stop In the corner booth She’d been waiting there for months And that’s the truth She looked at me with wary eyes She’d heard all my lies She was not surprised She only looked at me And shook her head Come back...

Last night I dreamt you very near Though the night was dark beyond the glass. I knew you'd left before I woke But you'd fogged the window when you passed. The air was still and smelled like rain, Though I'd never known so dry a spell. And what I heard there in...

When I'm weary lost or sad Overwhelmed or just fed up I say grace for what I have And most the time that is enough We are body, skin and bones We're all the loss we've ever known What is gone is always near We're all the love that brought us here [Ch...

Why do I worry so much, it can't add a day or year? It usually comes down to a matter of love or fear. I really don't know, and I can't tell you why. One sparrow falls to the ground, and another one flies. Chorus Could you throw me a line Could you take me in?...

Praise be that this thin mark, this sound Can form the Word that takes on flesh To enter where no flesh can go To fill each other's emptiness. To Words and How They Live Between Us... To Us and How We Live Between the Worth... And in between the sound of words...

We were sleeping when it all began, When spirits walked with open hands, And the water parted from the land, We were sleeping when it all begin. The blessed rain falls like grace, Without regard to wealth or race, And returns to vapor from this place,...

He was driving in to Chicago in a borrowed El Camino, On a hazeless day in springtime I think the Cinco De Mayo. Maybe it was St Paddy's Or the Gay Pride parade, But I've never seen nobody light up the street that way. Chorus:Brother/ Sister where you been? Ho...

It isn't fair, it isn't right. I've gone over and over the scenes in my head, Laid here awake half of the night. No it isn't good, and I can't let go. I've been something or someone I hurt, In some other life somewhere long ago. Chorus: I don't know how I star...