KOZY WEST 121411 - I PLAY C

James Michael Taylor

Kozy West

Emily had more regrets than she could ever count
She got to feeling crowded so she moved outta town
She bought herself a trailer park she called The Cozy West
Tried to forget about the past. Just be open to the best…open

To pass the time she spent it pulling weeds and painting signs
She kept the bathrooms up to what some people call The Nines
She was curtious and helpful. Every day she had new friends
But they were only passing thru. More beginnings and more ends
Passing…thru

A lot of Emily’s memories have faded. Like spirits out her door
But, not that white-haired angel she’d carried and shed bore
The one she’d tried to keep but … just wouldn’t stay
And, at the age of three she chose to give the child away

Now she believes in forgiveness and grace
She believes that god is good and she will find his way
But, why no respite from the grief that grows deeper every day?
And if forgiven, why the guilt and why these tears she wipes away

One night a broke down Ford steamed in, dimmed headlights askew
Two lost souls stumbled out, hungry, destitute
A mother and a baby, toe-headed as could be
She grabbed her heart and held back cries in the swoon of a memory

Would she trade help for parking? “Please, just a couple days.”
Emily said, “Of course. Of course!” The child absorbed her gaze
The memories poured back ’ore the dam but she said not a word
This was the answer to a prayer, a dream that sometimes blurred

And, then one day, the mother left the child and a thank you note
“I know I don’ deserve her.” That’s the words she wrote
Someone had jumped her battery. She left deep in the night
Oh, how could things go so wrong when they seemed to be going so right?

Emily knows that, someday, that mother will return
Until then, she’s gonna love that child and teach it all that it can learn
She’ll love her and she’ll nurture her like she’d dreamed of once before
And some day, her daughter would return. Come back to her door

Now, she believes in forgiveness and grace
She believes that god is good and that she will find his way
But, why no respite from the grief that turned her hair to gray?
And, if forgiven? Why the guilt? And why these years she wipes away…

(C) 2007 Royal T Music

This started as an effort to use just a “gypsy” chord. Tell a story. Could the suggestion in the name of that chord have lead to this? That, and my anguish at Peggy leaving’s recently?