He Doesn't Know Why

Penniless and tired with your hair grown long
I was looking at you there and your face looked wrong
Memory is a fickle siren's song
I didn't understand

In the gentle light as the morning nears
You don't say a single word of the last two years
Where you were or when you reached the frontier
I didn't understand

See your rugged hands and a silver knife
Twenty dollars in your hand that you hold so tight
All the evidence of your vagrant life
My brother, you were gone

And you will try to do what you did before
Pull the wool over your eyes for a week or more
Let your family take you back to your original mind

There's nothing I can do
There's nothing I can do
There's nothing I can say
There's nothing I can say
I can say