Shadows On A Dime

This window makes a perfect frame

For New England leaves like painted rain

They hold me as I hold this train

All shadows on a dime.

You move forward fast by holding back

You gauge your steps and you don't look slack

Me I'm looking backward down the track

To see us dreamers in our prime.

I poured my soul in Santa Cruz

I ached all night,

Next day I lost my shoes

It's so optional what you may or may not lose

in this pattern we call time.

Fifteen years ago I worked the line

With a thousand more all doing time

While a foreman smiled complicit crime

We were strangers to the plan.

An old old woman ran the gears

She couldn't move

They said she'd been there forty years

...I think that's rude...

'Cause forty years is forty years

And I was only fifteen then.

The work waged war upon our backs

But we gauged our steps and we didn't look slack

One day the old woman didn't come back

I couldn't work so well and they let me go.

But I don't forget about the factory

I don't expect this ride to always be

Can I give you what you want to see?

Can we do it one more time?

Ten years have worn this guitar down

Its ivory whites are now mustard brown

Its face bears cracks from every town

Still it resonates with age.

Where would I be without its ring?

Who would I be if I didn't sing?

For half a chance you spare nothing --

A tethered bird to a tethered cage.

I sing to you to feed the dream

I call to you 'though it's a muted scream

We're one on one projected beams

Translucent future be our sage.

Five years have blazed since she warmed my side

She is my gift I've loved and cried

With her level look she is my guide

A spirit on the wing

Our love has jostled like this train

Or like the moon to wax and wane

But to know somebody worth the strain --

Me I have one gift to bring

I cried for here then I let her down

She let me go and then we came around

I felt us new and I felt the ground

And I felt myself believing.

And now a tired conductor passes by

He takes my ticket with a sigh

I don't think he meant to catch my eye

But he doesn't turn away.

He says "I have a daughter as old as you

And there's really nothing anyone else can do

Do you play guitar...well good for you

Me I play the violin"

I imagine him with his hair jet black

Does he hide his fiddle in the back?

He gauged his words as the train went slack:

The New York train stops here

But I don't forget the factory

I don't expect this ride to always be

Can I give them what they want to see

Let me do it twice --

The second time for me.

'Cause these windows make a perfect frame

For New York buildings like upright trains

They hold me as I hold the rain

Fleeting shadows on a dime.