(Thomas Wolfe Annotations)

If you look backward angel
you've wandered a thousand different roads
traveling still a thousand more
made a million promises
and lived a hundred lives
took to dreaming in technicolor.
Still, all the roads led back home.

You can go home again, go!
Stay, visit, see the roads in the ol' hometown
where chapel floors creak of gospel hymns
and bottom rivers soak mud into memories
made fresh daily in the spring of your youth.
You might find something new.

Sure there were pretty girl flirtations
mud fights, and fisticuffs, laughs on the paths
beer runs, and camp-outs looking at the stars.
Drag racing, football games,
and odd jobs, and prom night fiascoes
falling asleep under the bleachers.
Okay, not all the memories were good.

Yeah, you followed different trails,
traveled a thousand of them
wandered their highways & byways
tasted pie from a thousand different window sills
spent nights in muggy motels
writing notes from a million lives you met
each with a poem or a story to tell.

Look homeward angel, come back home
stay for a while, see the folks, look up old friends
drop by the old schoolyard, and share a memory or two.
Say hello to the girl next door, who loved you.
Maybe you'll have something in common now.

There'll be a thousand more roads to wander
Thomas Wolfe still in your head telling you where to go.
He didn't say all the roads lead back home.
Nothing's ever the same, the town's still got dreams to give with inspiration, love and hope to spare.

The door is always open, a Greyhound station down the street with busfare for two,
a lifetime to dream again
and wander a thousand different roads.
Write about them this time.
Inspire more angels to wander as they inspired you.

Their roads will lead back to you.

Variation and tribute to Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel.