Closing Time

The trouble with beer is it's made out of water
And the trouble with water is clear
Every drop of blood spilled and ran to the river
Is still bound inside it somewhere

Whittled through reeds and dragged over rocks
Aparted and dumped in the sea
Rolled north and south in the swells and then found
Froze and adrift centuries

Thawed and risen and tumbled by storm
Or banded in mist round the range
And returned to the streams in that murmuring sound
The sounding of forgotten names

And I see by the stacking of chairs that it's time
But I just can't go out in the rain

This poem appears in

Pass it Along