THREE VOICES (2010)

THREE VOICES


(woman 1)

Birds
Migrating South
Beautifully aligned
Leaving us behind
Putting from their mind
Things they had
Already forgotten

If I weren’t crying
I might look up
And see them flying

Love
Farewell to love
Let him walk away
Let the music play
I will have to stay
And live somehow
He will be forgotten

My heart is a bell
That’s cracked and has
Had its final knell

Apropos:
A parable

A bell was ordered
A bell was fashioned
A thousand people
Took hold of ropes
The ropes loosened
The bell shattered
The pieces scattered
Like all my hopes


Don’t question why
Never ask why
You have got to believe
In something
Without something to believe
Life is pointless
And empty
Like today

How
How do we live
Nothing for a guide
Somehow we decide
And when we have died
Years from now
We will be forgotten

Every day is a curse
I can’t forgive
Though tomorrow looks worse

We must live
We must live

***************************************
(woman 2)

I got up and went to work
And I thought
That I might fall in love
But I didn’t
Love stayed furtive and hidden
I labored on
Till a year and another had gone

And each day I went to work
And I thought
About waiting for love
I was tiring
Love was softly inquiring
(But) love never asks
When you’re lost in a series of tasks


I have grown old working
And love is cold and dead
It lies shot through the head
Life can change in an instant
It drops the other shoe
The future you never knew
Becomes the past you never had

Someday we’ll know why we suffer
It will all come clear
I need a buffer
Between the winds of fate
And here

And now I go to work
And I know
I will never feel love
Tears have wracked me
Let my toil distract me
I will not shirk
And though love may be trying to lurk

I will work
I will work

*********************************
(trio)

We make decisions
And life goes on
We don’t make decisions
And life goes on
We decide what it means
Whether or not
That’s what it means
If it means anything
At all

*******************************************
(woman 3)

My head is splitting
Ever time I take a step
But it’s no use
The sun sets a moment then rises
One has to contend with tomorrow
Without excuse


I feel like quitting
Before I take another step
And though I ache
The future comes wrapped in disguises
One longs for a better tomorrow
For someone’s sake

We are only here a little while
I have grown old overnight
Every day is a trial
With no end in sight

I am not sure
I have the strength to endure

But the world will change
Some day
If we keep forging on
I long for the dawn

I wind up sitting
Afraid to take another step
But still it’s true
The future is what one devises
And who will inherit tomorrow?
I don’t have a clue

If only we knew
If only we knew

(Three voices together now)

(woman 3)

I wind up sitting
Afraid to take another step
But still it’s true


The future is what one devises


And who will inherit tomorrow?
I don’t have a clue


If only we knew
If only we knew
(woman 2)

And now I go to work
And I know
I will never feel love
Tears have wracked me
Let my toil distract me



I will not shirk
And though love may be trying to lurk

I will work
I will work

(woman 1)

How
How do we live
Nothing for a guide
Somehow we decide
And when we have died
Years from now
We will be forgotten

Every day is a curse
I can’t forgive
Though tomorrow looks worse

We must live
We must live