Flatten the Grass

                Words and music by Catherine Faber


I find in the morning three times out of ten
A patch on the grass has been flattened again.
It isn't the bed of a horse or a steer--
This hasn't been pasture for more than a year.
I'm a young lady of savvy and charm
There isn't that much I don't know on the farm--
Where cats get their kittens, how clouds make it rain--
I pester the grownups until they explain.

Chorus (after each verse):
     Flatten the grass, flatten the grass,
     What are they doing to flatten the grass?
     Flatten the grass, flatten the grass,
     What are they doing to flatten the grass?

Da says that people will look at the sky
Watching the shapes of the clouds going by.
I've done it myself at the edge of the track
The easiest way is to lie on your back.
This doesn't square with the way I behold
The patches at daybreak all empty and cold.
Here is a question I'll ask for a lark
How are they watching the clouds in the dark?

Ma says at evening folk take the chance
To practice a few of the steps of a dance.
Over and over they turn on the sod
And flatten the grass in the place they have trod.
Here is a patch, and I see it just fine,
Too small for a ring and too short for a line.
Here is a blanket--you have to concede
That dancing should keep you as warm as you need.

Peterkin told me if I'd come outside
He'd tell me the answer and show me beside.
But he was just fooling--I ought to have known--
He started to kiss me when we were alone.
I was so angry I stomped on his toes
I blackened his eye and I bloodied his nose.
Guess it was stupid--I figure somehow
If he knows the answer he won't tell me now.


Words and music copyright (c) 1997 by Catherine Faber

On UNDER THE GRIPPING BEAST CD, copyright (c) 1997 by Catherine
Faber and Arlene Hills