The Hills Reclaim Their Own

[good4somethingbum]

The Hills Reclaim Their Own ©2016 Robert George BMI

After midnight near the southern border
Juan was running through the brush and thorns
He was tackled near a dry creek
By a big man in a uniform
Juan began to yell in broken English
Saying he had something he could trade
A map of the Sierra Madres
To a secret gold mine he could raid
Well, the border agent slowly nodded
So Juan pulled the map out from his boot
Then the big man grinned and drew his sidearm
And poor Juan begged him not to shoot

And as Juan slipped off into the dark unknown
He said, “Senor, the hills reclaim their own”

Well, the agent read the map by moonlight
The big dipper was a dollar sign
And he felt as if his sudden fortune
Was maneuvered by design
He pulled out the nugget from his pocket
That’d been his golden good luck charm
Handed down from his great-great grandfather
It had kept his fam’ly line from harm
As he planned a long vacation
In the ancient hills of Mexico
A shadow flew from Juan’s blank eyes
And became a six-winged crow

The desert sand was starved for poor Juan’s bones
And the night wind said, “the hills reclaim their own”

Some say gold will purchase power and liberty
But it’s a snare from which you can’t pull free

When he found that village in the mountains
Peasants saw him and they seemed afraid
They crossed themselves when he left that evening
With four mules, a pick-axe and a spade
Cos the tale was told for generations
Of a man who came there long ago
He was known as El Diablo Blanco
For a massacre in Mexico
He made millions off a mountain gold mine
Using labor he paid pennies for
Then one day he sabotaged the entrance
And he sealed them in the mountain’s core

The gold mine’s secret would be his and his alone
The law forgets and yet the hills reclaim their own

Well, the big man found the entrance
And the full moon was a miner’s hat
And the mouth was covered up by boulders
And he felt the ghosts of men and bats
He picked and dug and toiled past sunrise
And by noon the mine was clear
He could see the walls were rich with treasure
The dust of hist’ry was a thin veneer
He slipped nuggets into canvas pouches
As the sun set on that mine
Outside the mules were spooked and nervous
As a crow alighted on a hollow pine

And inside a pile of bones began to moan
Cos the darkness watches when the hills reclaim their own

Soon the pine tree housed a murder of six-winged crows
Perched upon the limbs like soldiers in phantom rows

And then one crow’s feathers started shifting
Until they became a human shape
Then the mine caved in and trapped the big man
And his gold was coin of no escape
And then Juan stood there before him
And he reached out with an icy hand
And the big man’s screams were muted
Then he began to understand
He pulled out the nugget from his pocket
And he handed it to Juan
Then in time his bones had joined the others
Cos fate is king and fortune is a pawn

Soon the crows reduced the mules to gristle, tooth and bone
And their red beaks cawed “the hills reclaim their own”

Some say death’s a silent wind that circles the earth
And it gathers evil to the place of its birth

But no matter where or how far spirits have flown
Dust remembers and the hills reclaim their own