Down by the Pond

a song to the tune of "lord Franklin":

Summer is gone now. The Autumn is on

with the red, gold and green colored watery dawns.

My friends and my family i care for each one.

I am riding my bicycle down by the pond.

I recall a time it was just around the bend

i'd been bugging my dad to take me fishing with him

We didn't get nothin till on the far shore

We saw them all jumpin by an old cabin door.

We were reeling them in. it was easy and free

When i felt the old man smile over at me.

With the moon on the water not much was said

about the "keep out sign hung over our heads.

When we were kids we would drive far away

To a pond in the pines where mom swam in her day

When long day ended stars littered a dome

there was dreaming and singing

all our long way home.

My wife and i married then rode the north hills

to a spot near the border where the water was still.

Evenings we swam in a bottomless lake

These many years later i still think of that place.

and i took our young boys on mystery walks

up through the ball fields and on toward the docks.

Each weary way home would come their refrain:

Dad why are mystery walks always the same?

now as my body it does give me pain

i'm turning my bicycle t'ards home in a rain

i know i've been lucky.. i know it's been grand.

my friends and my family, they're who i am.

and winter is coming now; make no mistake

i'm watching two swans slide low across the lake

all of my money i would freely spend

to know we could live those old times again.