Checking In: With Her Feather in My Hat

With Her Feather in My Hat

I said, “I know you’ve got to go
That tomorrow must occur
And if we do meet once again
We will not be as once we were
We won’t again have this summer…”

I almost knew it from the start
From your laughter, so gay and light
It was your nature to take flight
I think, that about you was what I liked
It’s what I wanted to be like…

So why love to lose so soon?
Knowing well this painful fate
And from past times, its crushing weight
Should I not now my heart berate?
Before, eclipsed, it is too late…?

Ah, but it’s because I’ve known the weight
And have survived the mental storm
That makes me welcome back the thorns
Upon my days in fields of emerald
It’s worth your company, so warm…

But I knew you had to go
You’re too alive for this old town
You know I’ve kept all of your postcards
I wish they still would come around

And sometimes I like to dream
We’d meet again in mid-thirties
While playing a gig in the city
With a house in the country
And you would come in for tea…

And you would show me your wings
How now so scarred and tattooed
Yet perfumed and neatly jeweled
From a foolish life, full and not ruled
Weary but with little to preclude…

And you’d tell me that you’re tired
And are looking for a home
With soil to till and call your own
And a face to replace the phone
That you could watch sleep in your hold…

Yeah, it’s a pleasant little dream
For midnight walks in the cool wood
To an old and fallen tree
Where once I didn’t, but have I could
And now I listen to the stream
Now I listen to the stream

And I’m stroking this old feather
That you left as a souvenir
Like a pencil in my ear
With a kiss, moist yet austere
Laughter hiding tremble and tears…

But I knew you had to go
With too much passion to look back
I’ve kept that platform kiss you gave me
And your old feather in my hat

Sad now how much I have put off
How much I said – but just not now
That time alone shall not endow
That I alone must now avow
Or lay like the roots before the plow…

So I’ve been thinking about the road
And I’ve been thinking about my wings
Over the years so seldom used
Till now they’re almost useless things
But a scent of jasmine, the wind brings…

I’m dusting off all those tomorrows
It’s either growing up or growing old
I prefer silver to gray foretold
And buttercups about the wold
Accentuate these days of gold…

And I know I’ve got to go
It’s the only way I can come back
I’ve left the postcards and took the wind’s scent
With her old feather in my hat

It really isn't that great a mystery that I like to write LONG songs. That said. I've always thought this one was a little too long, in that I don't think the narrative and poetry is engaging enough to validate it. Some stanzas cover what at this point are familiar territory, while others welcome improvement by future songs. I'm terrible at cutting things, but I've seriously thought of discarding the last three or four stanzas and expect they would be omitted or heavily reworked if ever performed. 

For posting this, I have altered the "Yeah, it’s a pleasant little dream" stanza to repeat the last line, making it a bridge. This was due to both the need for melodic variety and the fact that the stanza was out of place with its different rhyme scheme.