If You Break

i lost you on the way to paradise.

we stopped at the old gas store
and you said you’d meet me there.

oh, darling, paradise is not as beautiful
as it is in dreams.

tell me, if all the stars and all the worlds
are a hundred thousand lifetimes away or more,
how far will one man search for love?

the stars of paradise hang
low on heaven’s bones,
and a young girl sings forever of love’s immortality
while she waits for a man who will never come.

the sea crashes quietly in the comfort of the moon,
the warm air stirs with bird wings.

oh, darling, paradise is not as beautiful
as it is in dreams.

i hear music of a hundred voices,
but they never speak of you.

i remember an old gas store long ago.
we drank cokes in the pink evening light,
the smell of cut grass and cigarette smoke
heavy in the humid air.

one pale blossom drifted from the sky,
and, oh, for one moment it looked like fire
in the sunlight,
but it had already died.

in all of paradise, i have never seen a blossom
as beautiful as your love.

darling, i hear music of a hundred voices…