Letter to Alan

When it's time for your reflection

As you wait until help arrives

See our good friend's face on the dashboard

And to know you cannot leave that cab alive

Do you know I reach for you, from later times?

Once I knew

Once I knew

And now I'm walkin'

And now I'm walkin' in the dark

Like bells and dogs are yelling all across Centennial Park

And the Sunday morning light just sends me blind

And I'm only feelin' useless 'cause there's nothing I can blame

Every person, thing and circumstance that moves this perfect day

You've left behind

And I'm thinkin'

Christmas 1982

Around this time a year ago

Gaskill sold his boat

And headed for the Cross to sink a few

And never trust a wayside chapel crowd on Christmas Eve

They must be entertained and if a stranger does the dyin'

Well, that's okay

I'm sittin' in a hotel room

Around Rue, St. Louis

Dialing old phone numbers down the line

And I measure my position to the obstacles we crossed

The territory covered and the parties that we lost

Those were the days

If I don't hang 'round our old gamblin' grounds

It does not mean that I've forgotten

We believed, and I still do