Midnight in the Colonnades
The lamplight casting De Chiricco shadows
On the glistening cobbles beneath her feet;
Her breath hangs in the air like mist in the early dawn
As she turns her face into the keening wind
And strains to hear the sound of his arrival.
Her heart is beating much too fast;
She bites her lip and then at last
She hears him:
The look they share as he rounds the square
Would be etched into your heart if you had seen it.

Echoes, waves or ricochets:
We leave our marks along the way
From the long grass of our childhood
To the loneliness of our end.

In a forest clearing all alone
The couple lie, their clothes undone
The sun the only witness to their love;
In the hazy distance, a baby cries,
The breeze begins to rustle leaves
But the dappled trees stand mute and fold their arms.
He pulls her close, and closer still
She holds his heartbeat to her own
She stretches out her hand
'May I ?' she asks, 'May I ?':
Two tiny words which detonate his life.

Echoes, waves or ricochets:
We leave our marks along the way
From the long grass of our childhood
To the loneliness of our end.

Her bony fingers curling round the cane
She keeps in case the bad men come
She stares as if her eyes could kindle flame;
She listens well, she nods her head
Knows that time will take her breath away
But that Time is the only teacher she has known.
In the slow reverberation
Of a bell which sounded long ago
Every new step we take is old;
'The trick', she says, with a twinkling eye
'Is to remember what you bought, not what you sold.'

Echoes, waves or ricochets:
We leave our marks along the way
From the long grass of our childhood
To the loneliness of our end.

Echoes, waves or ricochets:
They leave their marks along our way
Yet in our lives the parts that others play
We write ourselves.

Copyright © M.J.C. Griffin [ASCAP]