As heard in the barbershop
High on Windham Mountain there's a man
who walks so quiet
he can surprise that spookiest of birds
the wild turkey who hears a hunter
spit at fifty yards sees a eye twitch
at thirty This trigger-nerved turkey hen
use t'hunters lyin behind trees rocks
bushes always checks and rechecks
everthin: but the mountain man
sits in front of a tree so still
that the turkey hen steps on his boots
when she peeks behind it and the man
grabs her by her scrawny neck
and pops her in his bag slick
as a card trick He lives
by himself and a pile of bones
in a cave that smells of bear
but that bear ain't comin back nohow
Time was he had a real home
in Greene County lived there with
a one-eyed girl who loved t'dance
and sing the old Irish songs
while she worked in their garden
and one day drove off with a encyclopedia
salesman in a new Ford who said
she sang like a meadowlark in heaven
The next day the house burnt down
and no one never saw the mountain man
again neither but we know he's up there
because we've seed his tracks in snow
outside the dance hall window
leadin back to the deep woods
and once in a while a skier
feels her skis grow heavy as she glides
through birch and poplar off the beaten trail
and she's scared t'look behind her
knowin the ones who do
never return but lie forever
in the cave and the cold night wind
and the unforgivin hands of the mountain man