Mariano chords by Robert Earl Keen

• Capo on 2nd

Mariano
By: Robert Earl Keen

Capo 2nd Fret


    Am                               F
The man outside he works for me, his name is Mariano
   Am                                 C                 G
He cuts and trims the grass for me he makes the flowers bloom
   Am                                  F
He says that he comes from a place not far from Guanajuato
      Am                             G                  Am
Thats two days on a bus from here, a lifetime from this room.

  Am                               F
I fix his meals and talk to him in my old broken spanish
   Am                                     C                G
He points at things and tells me names of things I can't recall
    Am                              F
Sometimes I just can't but help but wonder who this man is
    Am                           G            Am
And if when he is gone will he remember me at all

  Am                                 F
I watch him close he works just like a piston in an engine
   Am                             C           G
He only stops to take a drink and smoke a cigarette
     Am                  F
When the day is ended, I look outside my window
      Am                 G           Am
There on the horizon, Mariano's silhouette

   Am                           F
He sits upon a stone in a south-easterly direction
  Am                               C               G
I know my charts I know that he is thinking of his home
     Am                         F
I've never been the sort to say I'm in to intuition
    Am                         G                     Am
But I swear I see the faces of the ones he calls his own

      Am                                   F
Their skin is brown as potters clay, their eyes void of expression
      Am                                     C                  G
Their hair is black as widow's dreams, their dreams are all but gone
        Am                       F
They're ancient as a vision of a sacrificial virgin
    Am                  G            Am
Innocent as crying from a baby being born

     Am                             F
They hover around a dying flame and pray for his protection
      Am                              C                  G
Their prayers are all but answered by his letters in the mail
   Am                                 F
He sends them colored figures that he cuts from strips of paper
    Am                           G              Am
And all his weekly wages, saving nothing for himself

     Am                             F
It's been a while since I have seen the face of Mariano
    Am                                  C             G
The border guards they came one day and took him far away
  Am                                 F
I hope that he is safe down there at home in Guanajuato
  Am                            G              Am
I worry though I read there's revolution every day...