It was a hot summer night
Nearly ninety, I'd say
When out back of Giovannis
The Bluesman sat down to play

He pulled up his crate
Took a sip from his flask
"This here's my med-cin"
"In case someone happens to ask"

He started a story
That we'd never heard
We're the folks of the street
And we followed each word

It's a tale of James Withers
A man in need of a hand
But to us on the street
He was the Sand Castle Man

The bluesman strummed gently
He didn't want the words to be lost
For this was a story
That had a hell of a cost

You see, James the sand man
Lost a life to the sea
His grandson, young James
Drowned when he was just three

Each day James went down
With his grandson in tow
They'd make castles together
Some fast and some slow

One day the pair
Were  at the end of the pier
When a rogue wave hit hard
And took what James held most dear

His grandson...swept out
Lost at sea, never found
They searched for three weeks
But the poor boy was drowned

James kept a vigil
Every day on the beach
He'd look out on the water
His heart out of reach

He kept making sand castles
As he did with young James
With shells and old driftwood
And he gave them all names

He'd have non-existent armies
Fight non existent wars
In his hard packed sand castles
He carved windows and doors

There was make believe dragons
In pools by the sea
Guarding make believe princesses
Who no one could see

There were turrets and moats
And each day he'd build one
To be lost to the tide
As the days work was done

Each day a new castle
Each day a new war
But, nobody knew
What he was building them for

The tide would come in
And would sweep it away
All that hard work
Gone at the end of the day

But, each morning he'd come
Build one more for the tide
With invisible armies
To flow away for a ride

People would watch him
Make the castles of sand
With imaginary soldiers
In imaginary lands

The bluesman sang soft
Took a sip once again
From the flask on his hip
It's just medi-cin

The crowd didn't stir
We were like moths to the flame
As we heard the bluesman
finish his tale about James

I asked him one morning
If he ever would end
Building castles of sand
He said, Bluesman, my friend

I know that each castle
Will be washed out to see
And I hope that my grandson
Gets a message from me

I make each sand castle
Like we both used to do
I come back every day
And start another anew

It helps with the closure
I send my soul to the sea
And I hope that my grandson
Knows they're for him made by me

He finished and thanked us
And we went on our way
All of us changed some
From what the bluesman did play

Next time I'm out wandering
And see the castles of sand
I'll know what he's building
Now...that I understand

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.