Hard lessons come down on the prairie  
When the day dies away in the heat
And clouds burn like red lanterns
Where the road disappears in the wheat.

I never was one much for talking
I taught you that was my way
You used to listen for hours
When I had nothing to say.

You loved me so true and sweetly 
I see what I hadn’t before
My depth was only the distance
Of a heart behind a closed door.

I see you out with her, walking
Her hand where my hand was
I hope what you hear when she’s talking
Are words from a heart full of love
So true and sweetly in love.

Bridge:
My pa didn’t talk and my ma took me in  
To that sadness where nobody cries
I did without words, the neighbors observed—
She's the girl who lives in her eyes
I’m that girl who lives in her eyes.

Sometimes I’ll cry in the morning
It comes up all on its own
Or alone on my porch in the evening
But mostly I’m dry as a bone
Yeah, dry as an old cattle bone.

Don’t know how to talk to tomorrow 
Walking these empty old rooms
I burn up my dreams without sleeping
What’s left of me is running on fumes. 

There’s rain that falls on the prairie
It’s coming a long way down
It dries on the cheeks of high summer
And never reaches the ground.

Photo: Brian Stransberry, Wikimedia Commons