The snow is shadowed in blue at 6 AM
You can feel the cold in your bones
There’s work in the barn before breakfast
And plowing the drifts where they’ve blown

And out across the valley, in the shadow of the hills
You can see where the town has grown
40 years of sunrise have met this place
Since I first called this place my own

Don’t be a fool, don’t be blind
They say this land is just solid gold waiting to be mined
My life has grown here like the maple
Rooted in these Northern Hills

They open up the north slope to the skiers
There’s new construction on the mountain side
The agent called, he says he wants to see me
If I didn’t mind on Wednesday he’d drive by

Johnson cashed in last year, he packed up and moved south
He said he just grew tired of living hand to mouth
If I had any sense, I guess, I’d travel the same route
But something keeps me hanging on

Don’t be a fool, don’t be blind
They say this land is just sold gold waiting to be mined
My life has grown here like the maple
Rooted in these Northern Hills

They ask you what you’re doing, you can’t explain
What it is that makes you act that way
Something in the way you’re born or how you’re raised
That makes some people go and other’s stay

Stars blink out one by one ’til there’s none

There left to greet the morning sun
And I stand here alone where there’s work to be done
Rooted in these northern hills

Don’t be a fool, don’t be blind
They say this land is just solid gold waiting to be mined
My life has grown here like the maple
Rooted in these Northern Hills

My life has grown here like the maple
Rooted in these Northern Hills

© Bill Harley, all rights reserved. Reprints with permission only.