He waited for her return where the cherry blossoms grow

With her face so warm like sawdust with her gentle beating soul

He searched for her everywhere for the light inside her heart

As she gave the gift of sound to a town that watched its wisdom depart

 

When soldiers called for a better deal she offered up her name

Down along embankments of a warm waterway

Where the air is plastered thick with wisps of heavy drainage

And she gave the gift of sound to the pitiful who could not be salvaged

 

Now the merchant from China talks to a Russian statesman

And the statesman made a promise that in a hundred years’d be forgotten

Brokering a gown for the broken in a different part of town

Still she gave the gift of sound to those whose promises went unfound

 

Shadows hung tattooed among the pale autumn sky

Children laughed in the evening light as they were pointlessly bribed

Soon forgot the reasons for the sound of petty squalls

But she gave the gift of sound to one who had nothing and no one at all

 

A man lay writhing between life and death

Crying out in pain every name he could muster from his breath

In years long gone, their names played like music he remembered

As he took her gift of sound and hung the burning lights of November