Ballad for Lilting Tongues

We sleep when we can and we work when we must.
Our jobs only seem to have little to do
with our hopes and our dreams until we explain
that we hope in and dream about things yet unborn.

We pine for The Winter until it confounds us.
We pine for The Summer until it surrounds us.
We speak of Our Dead as if they were all in the next room –
And nobody knows us who doesn’t know that’s what we do.

The best we can say about things as they are
is that someone made sure they were not carved in stone.
The less that we say about who is to blame,
the better our chances for putting things right.

We pine for The Winter until it confounds us.
We pine for The Summer until it surrounds us.
We speak of Our Dead as if they were all in the next room –
And nobody knows us who doesn’t know that’s what we do.

We can't stand the noise, but we won't call the cops.
We cannot save money. We cannot lose weight.
We come two hours early, and park three miles away.
We trade time for money, and buy things on time.

We pine for The Winter until it confounds us.
We pine for The Summer until it surrounds us.
We speak of Our Dead as if they were all in the next room –
And nobody knows us who doesn’t know that’s what we do.

We cannot remember what we learned in school,
but we're sure we learned more than they teach our kids now.
We troll our poor memories to seek out old haunts,
but we never completely recapture the thrill.

We pine for The Winter until it confounds us.
We pine for The Summer until it surrounds us.
We speak of Our Dead as if they were all in the next room –
And nobody knows us who doesn’t know that’s what we do.

First it's late in the day; then the night is still young:
my first inclination is rarely my best -
but there's always enough space to turn things around,
and there's usually time for a deep, cleansing breath.

We pine for The Winter until it confounds us.
We pine for The Summer until it surrounds us.
We speak of our dead as if they were all in the next room -
and nobody knows us who doesn't know that’s what we do.