Looking out my back door

LOOKING OUT THE BACK DOOR

Verse 1
Looking out the back door
Across the fields of hay,
Where Black Angus grazed the fence lines
Not so long ago today.
The cattle came, the cattle went,
The grass rose where they stood.
The land keeps its own calendar,
Like only old land could.

Verse 2
We bought the family farm
Some twenty years ago,
But nearly one full century
Of family roots still show.
We cleared the tangled underbrush,
Cut every field and lane,
Knowing when we cannot do it,
The woods will come again.

Chorus
The land is the constant,
We are only passing through.
Trees and crops and livestock,
Skies of gray and blue.
We build our barns and fences,
We call the acres ours,
But the land belongs to time itself—
To seasons, rain, and stars.

Verse 3
Terraces cross the hillsides,
Soft lines beneath the green,
Evidence of cotton fields
And lives no longer seen.
Perhaps enslaved hands worked them
Beneath a burning sun,
Their names erased from records
When all that work was done.

Verse 4
And long before those cotton rows,
Before the plow and claim,
Native people crossed these ridges
Though we may not know their names.
They hunted here and raised their young,
They loved and mourned and fought.
They knew these creeks and changing skies
Before this land was bought.

Chorus
The land is the constant,
We are only passing through.
Trees and crops and livestock,
Skies of gray and blue.
We build our barns and fences,
We call the acres ours,
But the land belongs to time itself—
To seasons, rain, and stars.

Bridge
Now there are taxes, permits,
Property lines and laws,
Neighbors watching fence rows,
And rules for what we cause.
It’s hard to reach behind it all,
Before the deeds were drawn,
Before a man could own the earth
Or say where it began.

Verse 5
So I stand here in the doorway
In the years that I was given,
Watching evening settle down
On the place where we are living.
I’ll mend the fence, I’ll mow the field,
I’ll care for what I can,
Then someone else will watch the sun
Move slowly across this land.

Final Chorus
The land is the constant,
We are only passing through.
Every generation
Leaves a trace of what they knew.
We build our lives upon it,
Then surrender back our hours.
For the land belongs to time itself—
To seasons, rain, and stars.

Outro
Looking out the back door,
I finally understand:
We never really own it.
We are caretakers of the land.