While We Covet the Sky

"I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?"

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Thoreau knew a thing or two. I've been thinking about his words a lot lately, weighing them within the context of my own life. This is what I've come up with:

While We Covet the Sky
Kate Pillsbury

I’d hollow out my bones
If it meant finally feeling at home
Down here we’re always choking on the dust
Of forgotten things and idle dreams and such
Lowly, dirt-smudged, earthly truths

Chorus:
The only men I’ve ever seen kiss the ground
Are those who’ve already learned to fly
The rest of us just wait our turn,
Turning clouds to pictures to pass the time
While we covet the sky

The grass itself could not be green
Were it not for the sky
Both for the rain it lends and for the envy it ignites
Keep in mind that everyday the ground is cursing gravity
Just like you and I

The only men I’ve ever seen kiss the ground
Are those who’ve already learned to fly
The rest of us just wait our turn,
Turning clouds to pictures to pass the time
While we covet the sky

I turned over the land
Hoping to plant a few seeds and a sense of purpose
But as always, that was lost on me
When my shovel hit bone, I took it as my cue to flee
I won’t let the land have all of me

The only men I’ve ever seen kiss the ground
Are those who’ve already learned to fly
The rest of us just wait our turn,
Turning clouds to pictures to pass the time
While we covet the sky