RIVER ROAD

Where I am bound I don’t know where

Should I arrive I will be there

When I am gone will you even care

This road is long and hard and steep

And the valley beyond is wide and deep

And the river that flows there down to the sea

It only goes where it can be free

The ways are many the journeys few

The endings all the same the beginning’s always new

And everything that is is bought and sold

It all passes down by the River Road

And all who’ve come and all who’ve gone

They’ve all stood on those banks at dawn

And all that’s taught or ever been told

I got away when we were caught

We all went down by the River Road

So when we could and when we would

We whispered of things like freedom and brotherhood

Well maybe it is or it ain’t to be but it’s up to us

We all said to set us free

So let it go and grab a hold

It’s up to you to come with me I’m headed down the River Road

Copyright 1994 H. J. Ridley, Jr.

LOVE SLEEPS:

Love sleeps so deep it cannot wake

Like flowers beneath the early snow

Love needs a heart ache to make it strong and let it grow

To last the winter cold and long when the north wind will blow

It never takes too much or gives away too cheap

It’s hard to hold it’s hard to touch it is impossible to keep

It runs too fast it runs too deep it’s hard to grasp or make it last

It always runs too sweet

Like the flowers bloom again in the spring

Love awakes a more beautiful thing

It fills that dark cold lonely place

With just the memory of your warm bright shining face

Copyright 1994 H. J. Ridley, Jr.

A DISTANT LOOK

A distant look a vacant stare they’re like old books those pages tear

And long lost cares and forgotten dreams they’re flowing by like muddy streams

There is no time there is no reason there is no rhyme to the season

And it doesn’t matter what you think you ought to think

When you wander alone out near insanities brink

Out near insanities edge the silence you hear is the only sound

And madmen peak through the hedge at treasures scattered across the ground

So come and go as you will and do as you please still you bow your head and kneel down to your knees

No matter how hard you feel you pray the blind will never see

They dwell in that dark prison thinking they are free and little by little bit by bit

They take each piece of the puzzle and try to find a place for it to fit

And now I often wonder what‘s become of that special one

She loved me so softly when it all had just begun

When time flowed like water rushing over the falls

Or lonely hushing echoes bouncing off the empty walls

There has never been an answer there is just a call

From that lonely dancer at the midnight ball

With a distant look a vacant stare they’re like old books those pages tear

And long lost cares and forgotten dreams they’re flowing by like muddy streams

Copyright 1994 H. J. Ridley, Jr.