Verse 1: Male

You came in July while the windows shook with rain,

A red-faced cry, my mother laughing through her pain.

They laid you in her arms; the whole room held its breath,

A small hand curled around her thumb, a beginning dressed as flesh.

Verse 2: Female

I learned the taste of peaches from the juice along my wrist,

The names of every neighbor, the first mouth I had kissed.

I kept a paper birthday crown inside a cedar drawer,

And thought the years were open fields with no fence, no closing door.

Chorus: Duet, harmony

We arrive with empty hands, we leave with stories worn,

A heart can break and still make room for every tender dawn.

Hold me while the hours pass, don’t turn away from me;

We are here, we love, we go—like leaves into the sea.

Verse 3: Male

I worked beneath the factory clock; the winters took their share,