Song For Ann

Song For Ann

She was an orphan girl raised in a stranger's house

Nothing to her name but a cotton mattress on a metal bed

Thoughts of her dear mother and a father who forgot her

Were replaced by dreams of hope for a heart on the mend

He was a widowed man hailed from Illinois

His was a well-worn face garnered from his hard-luck life

He didn't mark the days didn't seem to care at all

He only thought of her when counting the failures in his life

14 years dragged by time to resurrect the past

Her father came one night so different than she'd seen him last

A little worse for wear his eyes were hard and black as coal

She'd soon realize they matched the texture of his soul.

Chorus

She's traveling down the open road

'Tween miles and miles of gold

Abandoned girl a wounded heart

With many tears to sow

She'll grab a dream and hold it fast

Keep it close never let it go

There's no comfort in awakening

Pray God bless her soul

On a slate grey morning she left that world behind

For the red brick streets and the Sangamon County mines

To a dimly lit cafe where her father brought her

For the second time in her young life to abandon his daughter

Day turns to dusk soon night settles in

People come and go their day at an end

Shadows creeping down the walls then lay silent on the floor

She's listening for that bell to ring that won't ring anymore.

Chorus