The Ballad of Catherine Joy
She was born under the sign of the corner five and dime / at the place where 29th Street crosses Spring. / But the blinking neon light showed that something wasn’t right. / Where her hands should be there grew a pair of wings. / As the years went by she turned into a quite peculiar girl. / She’d spend all day perched on the jungle gym. / Then one day to the surprise of the other children’s eyes, / she was carried off upon a gust of wind. / She flew above the town as they tried to call her down, / and she took off for the corners of the globe. / From the jungles of Belize to the Parthenon in Greece, / the treetops and the rooftops were her home. / She was circling one day off the coast of Uruguay / when a sudden tempest blew down from the North. / Her flight began to founder as the dark clouds closed around her / she was carried off upon a gust of wind. / She woke up on the beach of an island out of reach / of anywhere that she could hope to fly. / So she took a look around and resigned to settle down. / Seemed as nice a place as any to live and die. / She spent fourteen hundred days in that lonely lovely place / hunting sea turtles and fending for herself. / Till one morning she awoke to see a little wooden boat / with a tired looking young man at the helm. / He cradled in his arms an old beat-up guitar / and her played for her a haunting minor chord. / She felt all the planets winds were blowing her towards him, / so without a backwards glance she climbed aboard. / She sailed with him in bliss on a sea of songs and kisses, / but it turned out that the boat was much too small / for her wings and for her lover, so she plucked out all her feathers / and found underneath she had hands after all. / They traveled hand in hand never setting foot on land / for seven years or maybe even more. / Till late one misty night they saw the glow of harbor lights / and he turned and said, “It’s time we went ashore.” / With a tightening in her throat she agreed to watch the boat / while he went to town to pick up odds and ends. / But she noticed with alarm that he took his old guitar, / and she realized he would not be back again. / She felt like she would die for she could no longer fly / and her useless arms had nobody to hold. / And though her
arms were empty the had never felt so heavy / and she had never felt so old. / She wandered ‘round the town till both her soals wore down. / Each night the street lamps swallowed up the stars. / Then one day she chanced to stop at a little corner shop / where in the window stood her lover’s old guitar. / She took it off the stand in her softly trembling hands / and she placed her fingers on the worn-out strings. / And as a song escaped her lips, she felt her body lift, / for at the moment that she had begun to sing / she’d once again begun to grow a pair of wings.