GHOST STEPS BEHIND ME - Song Page
© words & music by Annie Wilson
from CD Sky & Water, Wind & Grass
Album Note: I truly do often hear what sound like footsteps following me on my prairie walks. It must be some type of echo effect, but out in those spiritual surroundings, I think of the Native people who made these hills their home for thousands of years, and of how much we could learn from them.
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Illustration made for this song by Flint Hills artist Terra Coons
LYRICS:
Sometimes when I’m walking the prairie alone
I’ll think I hear footsteps behind as I go
As I wade through the grasses in long even steps
I’ll hear right behind me each step fall again
I turn and I wonder: who follows me here?
Are you some kind of echo? Is somebody there?
Are they sounds of the spirits who lived long ago
Ancient shadows of people who made this their home
These ghost steps behind me - They once roamed these hills
I wish I could follow - And learn from them still
I try to imagine the secrets they knew:
Of which plants to gather for salad or stew
How to feather an arrow and carve out a bow
Where to go for the hunt – just how did they know
How to gather and fashion a shelter by hand
Made only from what they found here on the land
How to set up a camp and survive the worst storm
Make clothing to wear in the cold to keep warm
CHORUS
Their struggles were many and hardship a cost
But they lived in a harmony we now have lost
If we try could we still learn the ways of their lives
How the prairie and people here both can survive
So next time I’m walking and hear that soft tread
Of a footstep behind me or trick of the wind
I’ll think of those spirits whose time now is done
A time when the prairie and people were One
CHORUS