WHEN WE WERE JUST CHILDREN

When we were just children we’d leave in the morning
We wouldn’t return until late in the evening
Nobody would mind what we did in the meantime
Each day was but a fantasy of dynasties and piracy

What a difference it was between outside and inside
What a difference it was between rain and the sunshine
What a difference it was between recess and school time
A million worlds, a million lives, a million stars and all were mine

Oh, where have we gone now?
Where did they go now?
Where can we find them?
Somebody said he saw them running
Lying in the field there sunning

Breathlessly, heedlessly, breezily, easily
Whimsically, happily, fleetingly, ceaselessly
Fearfully, tearfully, blissfully, wistfully
A harlequin in a pirate’s hat, a Roman Legion at our back

So why do I stay there?
Why can’t I leave there?
Was love what I knew there?
Was it truly magic then or is magic just the memory?

Hopefully, jokingly, boundlessly, joyously
Stubbornly, suddenly, gullibly, luckily
Clumsily, awkwardly, hungrily, blushingly
Sunday hymns and Jungle Jims
You’d think by now that they’d grow dim

So where have the years gone?
Did that even happen?
And how can it come back?
It seems to without even trying
Even though I may be lying

To touch it, to smudge it, to see it, to be it
To catch a wild thing, then to free and to flee it
The splinters, the blisters, the secrets, the sisters
They all went flying by so fast
Why couldn’t we have made them last?

Will we always be victims of time ever-fleeting, photos in closets?
If most of me has come before then what am I still fighting for?

God protects drunks just as he protects children
When parents stayed close for the sake of their children
But that time is gone and so too is the wisdom
Of cockleshells and carrousels and letting children be themselves

So I’ll write a new ending, a fairy-tale ending, of love never-ending
A better draft of me and you and all the things we wanted to come true

Words, music, recording, and production by Richard Faylor
© Deep Happy Music
richardfaylor@yahoo.com
208-713-4002