The reproach in your daughter's most beautiful face

made me wonder just how she could know

of that something that happened between you and me

so much more than a long time ago



Her mother, I can see, lives within her still

cause she looked at me with her eyes

though I had only just met her right then

I feel that she peeled back my guilty disguise



Did i break the thread, or did you break the thread?

well at this point we could ask who cares

as for the promises broken and frayed

it's 19 years late for repairs



The grey pewter vase held the deep red rose,

one piece of coral shone white,

by the brass candlestick near your red velvet coat,

is everything I can recall of one night



Will you please tell me why I remember these things

after all of this time, I don't know

i must have left all those feelings inside

cause that year I had no courage to show



Was i the name you could never pronounce?

or did i even figure at all?

all of this happened before she was born

did i shadow her young pencil marks on the wall



Still i am sure i was only but one

of a number who darkened that door

of your home and your hearth and your family and wife

who'd been darkened so often before



Oh, the red leaf looks to the hard gray stone

to each other, they know what they mean

somewhere, their future is still yet to come

in ways that are yet as of now unforeseen