The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Roberta Flack


The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the endless skies

The first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command my love

And the first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last till the end of time my love

The first time ever I saw your face
Your face, your face

Despair was too simple a word for how he felt.
Despondent didn’t quite do it justice either.
Some men might have knelt to God in prayer,
But the lieutenant was not much of a believer.

He took his service revolver in his hand
and looked one last time at their wedding picture.
Tears might have helped, except he could not cry;
not for himself nor for her blighted future.

He thought of his shield mates; his fellow men in blue,
And the twenty-five years he’d put in on the job.
Anxiety had dogged him on every shift.
In the machine called justice, he’d been just a cog.

He’d left his note upon the kitchen table;
just a simple goodbye, not long on explanation.
He took the barrel between his lips and fired;
By dying he would make his expiation.

El pintor de palabras se recostó con su café
En el viejo y maltratado sillón de color burdeos.
Deseó estar bebiendo borgoña
En una silla de color café, pero los mendigos no pueden elegir.

Ser un pintor de palabras no es tan lucrativo como lo era en el pasado.
Sin embargo, en el lado positivo del libro mayor, nadie era probable
Para pedirle que nade el Hellespont
y arriesgar su vida por la independencia griega.

¿Qué, entonces, debería escribir hoy?
Pensó en ella que una vez había usado su anillo.
Pensó en una niña encantadora, bronceada
Con mechones ***** azabache
y ojos latinos vivos.

Extraño, no había pensado en ella en bastante tiempo.
Bueno, pensó, después de todo, hoy es su cumpleaños.
“Feliz cumpleaños a mi querida Barbara Jeanne.

Me enseñaste lecciones de amor y pérdida
y me dejó con solo el toque de un poeta.

The Word Painter sat back with his coffee
In the battered old burgundy colored armchair.
He wished he was instead sipping burgundy
In a coffee colored chair, but beggars cannot be choosers.

Being a word painter is just not as lucrative as it was in the past.
Yet, on the positive side of the ledger, no one was likely
To ask him to swim the Hellespont
and risk his life for Greek independence.

What, then, should he write today?
He thought of her that once had worn his ring
He thought of a girl, lovely, tan
With jet black tresses
and lively Latina  eyes.

Strange, he hadn’t thought of her in quite some time.
Well, he thought, after all, today is her birthday.
“Happy birthday  to my Dear Barbara Jeanne.

You taught me lessons of Love and loss
and left me with just the touch of a poet.

The manuscript was proofed and approved
when Rachael Carson spoke to us that night.
Silent Spring would be her testament;
her final gift to the world of men.
Her cancer of the breast had spread
and she fought weariness often now.
Still, she knew she must sound the warning;
“Reform your ways or face your worlds end.”
To her well-trained mind, it’s true
She found Our Earth beautiful and new.
Still, she saw troubling things as well
in the thinning of the Ospreys shell.
If these beautiful birds still grace our skies
Thank Rachel Carson for she was wise..
Heed well her words and the light they bring
If you seek to avoid a silent Spring.

On beams of steel they Death defy,
while they're working way up high.
They are union brothers; Iron men.
The fraternity of the Sky Walker clan.

Two thousand feet up, they weld the steel
In heat and rain they labor on
until a new glass tower greets the morning sun
then the Sky Walker clan moves on.

Muscle and balance; skill and zeal
it takes to make those blue prints real.
They built this City; story by story
That is the Sky Walker's claim to glory

There’s a seat at the table if you’re so inclined.
Bitter herbs and fish are offered, served with bread and wine.
It’s an intimate Seder gathering, just twelve of his close friends.
He calls them Disciples. You know what this night portends.

There’s a seat at the table, for one man’s left early.
Judas seemed racked with guilt, by turns worried and surly.
Did our Host have foreknowledge, or did he merely suspect,
when he pointed out that traitor when they both dipped their bread?

Our Host is reflective; there is much on his mind
As he offers us bread and he blesses the wine.
This week has been a whirlwind of Halcyon days.
He entered by the Eastern gate to much acclaim and praise.

There was that trouble at the temple where the money changers lurk.
You never saw the Lord so angry when about his Father’s work.
Now our Seder is concluding and it has been a long day,
Will you join us at Gethsemane where the master’s gone to pray?