Quarter Carousel

I was a toddler on a horse outside a small town grocery store

Begging for another quarter from my mother

She picked me up and said

"Now, now today we get one time around"

And that's how disappointment was discovered

Come seventeen, I was as green as that girl’s copper mezzanine

Where I used to hide away from her father

And we plied those precious ores, listening for footsteps near the door

Two glowing embers trying not to catch fire

How do I stand still on this quarter carousel?

I am on my way

Turn, turn, turn

Time will take the wisdom out of me

Turn, turn, turn

The starry fields will heal a cabin fever

And the troubles started hard as disappointment traced its arc

As the clockwork stars turned through the darkness

She said she had to go, under her mama's portico

And she left me with the ghost of a sunset

In the back of a whiskey bar I found the world's saddest guitar

I changed a couple strings and started playing

I had to sing a thousand songs before a stranger came along

Forever closed my old handbook of lamentation