Track 09 – Suite: The Friend I Never Had

Description

Suite:  The Friend I Never Had (11:22)

Once we spoke in the present tense . . . and you held me like your rosary;

Sitting each by each not far from here . . . like the shore holds the sea.

Here and there the people lived . . . some in mansions . . . some in holes;

Our existence held us like a theater . . . or some harvest we had grown.

As our author you always stood between . . . our dreams and your own;

Never able to choose comfortably . . . either as your home.

Yet, we claimed you as if (we were) settlers . . . you were the land beneath our yoke;

Like scissors to a string, things flew apart . . . when the vows broke.

I didn’t notice as he was standing . . . that his measure wasn’t tall;

I only noticed as he stumbled . . . saw him falling . . . watched him fall . . .

That his Destination distracted him . . . like the ringing of a phone;

And his Destiny tripped him up . . . like an unexpected stone.

Both the surgeon and the patient . . . working tired . . . and walking thin;

He was always standing in a line . . . that was waiting just for him . . .  that was waiting just for him.

He poured out his heart like a cool drink . . . until every drop was gone;

He within his circled arms . . . a world was holding . . . on.

He’d grown used to having lost and he put his losses on his shelf;

Accepting everything as nothing . . . and life as death itself.

The muted mutter of my prayers . . . echoed through the gloom;

(And) pressed the crucifix tighter to its nail . . . in the cathedral of his room.

And as I prayed to a sleeping Savior, my Faith woke up and struck a match in me;

That all my prayers had not changed God . . . my prayers had just changed me.

I heard his voice but not his words . . . I saw his eyes but not his tears;

His eyes revealed his history . . . while his face concealed his years.

In his listening . . . not his speaking . . . meaning lived within his voids;

In his plantings . . . not his harvests . . . in his silence . . . not his noise.

And the life he lost in living . . . wasn’t measured in just a day;

These minutes were not monsters . . . that his hat could drive away . . . that his hat could drive away.

He dreamed dreams only half his size . . . Time ticked quickly from the peace;

He was mostly a forest person . . . who was living with the trees.

And when the summer had no voice for song . . . he died from the web he’d spun;

In the arms of home . . . he ended up . . . just where he’d begun.

His picture hangs beside my bed . . . there what memories I choose . . . I’ll have;

He died forever being . . . the friend I never had.

(The friend I never had) (For a lifetime struck a match in me . . . that my prayers changed me not God)

His picture hangs beside my bed . . . there what memories I choose . . . I’ll have;

He died forever being . . . the friend I never had.