Poetry Corner Sunday Night

I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion this morning, as I do every Sunday morning. Garrison Keillor announced one of his musical guests: a folk singer, previously unknown to me, by the name of Joe Pug. He hadn't gotten two lines into his song "Hymn 101" before I knew, with every ounce of certainty inside me, that this was one of the most significant pieces of music and poetry I would encounter in my life. To me, there is no statement more profoundly moving, no statement more full of courage and simultaneous trepidation, no statement plainer and yet more philosophically complex than the line, "I've come to test the timber of my heart." I wish I could explain the emotions that swell inside me when I hear it and read it and sing it aloud. It just fits. That's really all I can say. It is the sentence of my life.

Hymn 101

By Joe Pug

And I've come to know the wish list of my father
I've come to know the shipwrecks where he wished
I've come to wish aloud
Among the over-dressed crowd
Come to witness now the sinkin' of the ship
Throwin' pennies from the sea top next to it

And I've come to roam the forest past the village
With a dozen lazy horses in my cart
I've come here to get high
To do more than just get by
I've come to test the timber of my heart
Oh, I've come to test the timber of my heart

And I've come to be untroubled in my seekin'
And I've come to see that nothing is for naught
I've come to reach out blind
To reach forward and behind
For the more I seek the more I'm sought
Yeah, the more I seek the more I'm sought

And I've come to meet the sheriff and his posse
To offer him the broad side of my jaw
I've come here to get broke
Then maybe bum a smoke
We'll go drinkin' two towns over after all
Oh, we'll go drinkin' two towns over after all

And I've come to meet the legendary takers
I've only come to ask them for a lot
Oh they say I come with less
Than I should rightfully possess
I say the more I buy the more I'm bought
And the more I'm bought the less I cost

And I've come to take their servants and their surplus
And I've come to take their raincoats and their speed
I've come to get my fill
To ransack and spill
I've come to take the harvest for the seed
I've come to take the harvest for the seed

And I've come to know the manger that you sleep in
I've come to be the stranger that you keep
I've come from down the road
And my footsteps never slowed
Before we met I knew we'd meet
Before we met I knew we'd meet

And I've come here to ignore your cries and heartaches
I've come to closely listen to you sing
I've come here to insist
That I leave here with a kiss
I've come to say exactly what I mean
And I mean so many things

And you've come to know me stubborn as a butcher
And you've come to know me thankless as a guest
But will you recognize my face
When god's awful grace
Strips me of my jacket and my vest
And reveals all the treasure in my chest?