Tears of laughter

The years went by like rain on glass

Too quick to hold, too hard to grasp

Faces faded, names grew thin

Some never came back home again

The house still keeps their quiet sound

Echoes moving room to room around

Photographs in silver frames

Smiling mouths and borrowed names

And all that’s left thereafter

Are years and tears of happiness and laughter

We chased the light, we missed the signs

Spent good hearts on borrowed time

Hands once strong now shake at night

Trying to hold what slipped from sight

The mirror knows what I became

A little wiser, not the same

Lines that no one else can read

Written there by love and need

The chairs sit full of ghosts hereafter

With years and tears of happiness and laughter

If I could buy one hour again

I’d waste no breath on pride or pain

I’d hold them longer at the door

And say the words I saved before

Now evening leans against the rafters

And I count years and tears of happiness and laughter

When morning comes and I am gone

The world will simply carry on

But somewhere in the silence after

Lives the years and tears of happiness and laughter