CHERRY LAUREL 081511 A STRICKEN

CHERRY LAUREL - James Michael Taylor - 081111

Dm C B A
There’s nothing quite so slow to grow as a cherry laurel tree
A fingerling beneath an old oak canopy
Presented as a volunteer, that creek bank west of town
One hundred yards from our back door, water hole I hung around
D# Dm
I’d lie and stare up at the noose that dangled from the oak
C Bb A Dm
When all I wanted without you was a casket and a rose

When Joseph died my parents broke. It left them without strength
I couldn’t bear to let them down another fatal length
So I put my destiny on hold, a sober son I’d be
And watch the cherry laurel grow into a cherry tree
And who could know my mother, cold, crippled, pained and gray
Would live on to be ninety one and then a few more days?

D#
Bruise the bark and you can tell
Dm
The cherry laurel got it’s name
C Bb A Dm
without the fruit but it still smells the same…

And father, fit as fiddle, a solid 92
Leaves me here these twenty years in sadness without you
I dreamed again this morning, you, naked on our bed
The one that’s not been slept on since you left me unwed
I lie and stare up at the noose that dangles from the oak
When all I wanted without you was a casket and a rose

And in the stories others told me you were gone for good
And I’m wondered how could they know unless they have bruised the wood
For who can know a lover’s heart, it’s fabric and it’s woof
And think the moon just an orb that tumbled off the roof
I lie and stare up at the noose that dangles from the oak
When all I want here without you is a casket and a rose
I lie and stare up at the noose that dangles from the oak
When all I want here without you is a casket and a rose…

Bruise the bark and you can tell
The cherry laurel got it’s name
without the fruit but it still smells the same…
(C) 2011 Royal T Music