A Bandit's Song

A Bandit’s Song
(for You)

The day arrives when all is not enough,
When you’ve run at the fort,
Guns ablaze, only to be met by the Gatling
And the canister shot.

Those are days when you die laughing.

Oh, there’s hole in my chest where my heart
Once slept, locked away from the world –
But I opened the vault to inspect it
Only to find a slip of paper,
Some writing in her gentle hand:
“Eventually.”

There are days when you die laughing.

So I see my destiny, as I saw it yesterday,
And saw it plain the year before –
That a thousand times I’m fated to charge
The mission door
And die on the doorsteps
Before Mercy smiles and unbars the thing.

Yes, I’ll stand inside,
A bandit in the chapel
Where her gentle hand is kept
As in a reliquary, waiting for none but me.

And on that day, I will not laugh at all,
But smile and forget my losing ways;
For there are days you die laughing,
And there are others when the tears pass away.

Richard Van Ingram
14 August 2008