Refuge of the Roads

I met a friend of spirit A drunk with sage's eyes As I sat before his sanity I was holding back from crying He saw my complications And he mirrored me back simplified And we laughed how our perfection Would always be denied "Heart and humor, and humility" He said, "Will lighten up your heavy load" And he sent me then to the refuge of the roads I fell in with some drifters Cast upon a beach town Winn-Dixie cold cut thieves And highway hand-me-downs And I wound up fixing dinner For them and Boston Jim I well-up with affection Thinking back down the roads 'til then The nets were overflowing In the Gulf of Mexico Ah, they were overflowing in the refuge of the roads There was spring along the ditches There were good times in the cities Oh, radiant happiness It was all so light and easy 'til I started analyzing And I brought on my old ways A thunderhead of judgment was gathering in my gaze And it made most people nervous They just didn't want to know what I was seeing in the refuge of the roads I pulled off into a forest Crickets clicking in the ferns Like a wheel of fortune I heard my fate turn, turn, turn And I went running down a white sand road I was running like a white-assed deer Running to lose the blues To the innocence in here These are the clouds of Michelangelo Muscular with gods and sungold Oh, shine on your witness Taking refuge in the ruins In a highway service station Over the month of June Was a photograph of the earth Taken coming back from the moon And you couldn't see a city On that marbled bowling ball Or a forest, or a highway For me here, least of all You couldn't see these cold water restrooms Or this baggage overload Westbound and rolling taking refuge in the roads