This original song from about 1968 fell easily into the folk vein a la Simon & Garfunkle. My harmony-friend Chris Harman wrote the original poem which inspired and morphed into a song when he was 17 in grade 12, about 1967. He and I sang as a duo in a school drama presentation at Manitoba Theatre Centre in our grade 12 year. We did “The Dangling Conversation” and “I Am a Rock”. Later we were two of the three singers in our folk group called Clover which played from 1969 to 1970 in Winnipeg. See the picture of us performing in the July 12, 2013 entry. (In another life, Chris became a prominent, respected woman’s doctor in Poe’s city of Baltimore.)
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The clouds roll in and it starts to rain once more
I close my window and then I shut the door
All alone in the shadows of my room
Spring rains make the streets so slick
Raindrops make my visions thick
I am listening to silver silence in my mind
Cars splash by, yes I hear them come and go
My thoughts like rivers, they soon begin to flow
Onto paper, down they tumble, line by line
Familiar faces briefly flicker on the wall
Distant voices, I still hear them call
Calling for me from the patterns on my wall
Time’s our master and he leaves so confused
We do our best just to keep up with the news
Childhood memories lost forever from our lives
I climb up to the highest treetop
From soot and rain and wind that won’t stop
Looking downward on a child that was me
The clouds roll in and it starts to rain once more
I close my window and then I shut the door….
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“Genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.”–Matthew Arnold