The Blessings

(album: Mortal City - 1996)

If you're gonna get your heart broke, you better do it just right
It's gotta be raining, and you gotta move your stuff that night
And the only friend you can reach isn't a good friend at all
And you know when he says "Now who dumped who?" that you never should have made that call

I had the blessings, there's nobody there, there's nobody home
Yeah, the blessings, at the moment I was most alone
And aimless as a fulltime fool, the joke was on me
I got all those birds flying off of that tree, and that's a blessing

And the blessings were like poets that we never find time to know
But when time stopped I found the place where the poets go
And they said, "Here have some coffee, it's straight, black and very old"
And they gave me sticks and rocks and stars and all that I could hold

I had the blessings, a moment of peace even when the night ends
Yeah, the blessings, can we meet? Can we meet again
At the crossroads of disaster and the imperfect smile
With the angel in the streetlamp that blinks on as I walk on a mile, the blessings

And the best ones were the ones I got to keep as I grew strong
And the days that opened up until my whole life could belong
And now I'm getting the answers, when I don't need them anymore
I'm finding the pictures, and I finally know what I kept them for
I remember, I can see them, see them smiling, see them stuck
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings

I was fast asleep at three in the morning when I got the payphone call
And she said, "Did I wake you up," I said, "Hey, no, not at all"
And she said, "I got this suitcase and I don't know what to pack"
And I said, "You can take anything you want, just wait and see
It's not a release, not a reward, it's the blessings
Its the gift of what you notice more"
And I walked out and I watched her kick the big pile of the night
And we sat down and we waited for that strange and empty light
Yeah the blessings...

See them smiling, see them stuck
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings