It's only when the high winds blow that I wish my hair was long

Sailing through the autumn leaves singing an ancient song

Or falling in love in the streets at night at the edge of a local square

It's only that I'm here tonight thinking I was there



There are high winds on the pier tonight, my soul departs from me

Striding like Thalia's ghost south on the murky sea

And into midnight's tapestry she fades, ragged and wild

Searching down her ancestry in the costume of a Persian child



And gulf winds bring me flying fish that shine in the crescent moon

Show me the horizon where the dawn will break anew

And cool me here on this lonely pier where the heron are flying low

Echo the songs my father knew in the towns of Mexico



When I was young my eyes were wise, my father was good to me

Instead of having a flock of sons he had two other girls and me

And if we had used our Spanish names, here's the way they'd run

Thalia, Margarita and Juanita, I'm the middle one.



The screen door kept the demons in as we moved from town to town

It's hard to be a princess in the States when your skin is brown

And mama smoothed my worried brow as I leaned on the kitchen door

Why do you carry the weight, she said, of the world and maybe more?



And gulf winds bring me flying fish that shine in the crescent moon

Show me the horizon where the dawn will break anew

And cool me here on this lonely pier where the heron are flying low

Echo the songs my father knew in the towns of Mexico



My grandfathers were ministers and it came on down the line

My father preached in his parents' church when he was ten years and nine

And mama dressed in parishoners' clothes and didn't believe in hell

Her daddy foug