Flowers - Wine

It must have been coming on June in the year

When I passed down a street and I saw you sitting there

Alone in your yard in a beat-up folding plastic chair

Well the sun beat down but you found some shade

You were sitting all alone in a garden that you made

Where each blade of grass and soldier straight flower obeyed

And I looked at you but to my surprise

Across generations eyes me eyes

And I tried to understand

But your taut lips they never said hi

Was your mind trained on the living or the dead

On the long road behind or the short road ahead

Did you take some comfort in colors that don’t fade

Were you hiding from the sun in your little bit of shade

Did you trade the moment for eternity

Make permanence a friend, time an enemy

Were you killing time or savoring the hours

Seeking salvation in rows of plastic flowers

I couldn’t stop to ask I had somewhere to be

Had something to do, somebody else to see

Had seeds to sow that might finally set me free

So I went on home to my own little garden

All the fragile, vivid blooms that live for just a few hours

Took my son’s tiny hand and watched a perfect sun falling in a limitless sky

And I thought about my life and the passing of time

All the flowers I’d plant and the trees I might climb

In my own tiny yard if there were ever ever enough time.