These Very Steps by Dale Adams

These Very Steps

Underneath these very steps

We kids used to hide

While the old folks prayed and sang their hymns inside

Out of sight and out of mind

For hours we would play

Shaded from the sunlight of those late-summer days

 

On these very steps

She first smiled at me

All through the sermon, she was all i could see

Walking her back home

I held her slender hand

At the ripe old age of twelve, our world seemed so grand

 

And down these very steps

We emerged as one

I’d find us a home, she’d bear me a son

We were both so happy

The future seemed bright

Her smile was my treasure, our love warmed the night

 

Carried up these steps

A pine box with my bones

She followed close behind, walking all alone

A war so far away

Put an end to all our dreams

My young widow wondered, what did it all mean?

 

 And now these old steps

are weathered and cracked

the congregation are mostly buried out back

gathered all around me

are the elders i once knew

asleep in the ground under ageless skies so blue