Aunt Matties Quilt

Intro:        Aunt Mattie bent a thousand times down the long black rows Then battled with the angry weeds so little seeds could grow Come summer Mattie pulled the snow from cruel and cutting bolls She was patient pale and slender and was only eight years old Round ’n round the spinning wheel beneath Aunt Mattie’s boot She recalled the soil and cotton seeds and summer’s hopeful shoots Two winters spun out summer’s threads in rich and creamy folds And she had a bolt of cotton cloth when she turned ten years old Chorus: If we bend and plant the seeds and tame the wicked weeds If we let the sun and rain assist and simplify our needs If we follow in the barefoot path of one persistent girl We’ll throw a healing quilt across an ever ailing world Indigo and lavender made up Aunt Mattie’s sky Remembering her childhood days she made the rustic dye In the hour before the day would end it fed young Mattie’s dream She made indigo and lavender when she turned just fourteen Chorus: If we bend and plant the seeds and tame the wicked weeds If we let the sun and rain assist and simplify our needs If we follow in the barefoot path of one persistent girl We’ll throw a healing quilt across an ever ailing world Instrumental;  (same as Verse) Aunt Mattie bends a thousand times down each patchwork row And piece by piece and stitch by stitch in fading candle glow The valley of the shadow cannot call her from her seams Until finishing her lifetime’s work she dies at seventeen Chorus: Oh and if we bend and plant the seeds and tame the wicked weeds If we let the sun and rain assist and simplify our needs If we follow in the barefoot path of one persistent girl We’ll throw a healing quilt across an ever ailing world   OUTRO: