Song Description

A woman in need meets a mysterious man on a dark road.

Lyrics

A woman
begged a ride from a man.
Another
step home. And,
this woman
was with child.
She was due anytime,
just a matter of miles.

She volunteered to the man,
"I've got something to say.
I didn't mention it before
'cause I needed a way home.
I think I'm about to give birth
to this secret inside."
He said, "It's a long way to town;
it's a matter of miles."

His gaze fell to the rear,
drawn in by here eyes.
Though his visage like stone,
she could swear he was smiling.
The girl held her breath,
unsure what to come.
But the man merely nodded
and pulled of from the road.

Quietly, he prepared.
wordlessly, she looked on.
In the sight she drew confidence,
loosed fears to move on.
Something in his manner --
a peace to this son --
gifted here to this mother
as her labor begun.

A wave,
and she stifled a cry
at the image
of a wrong deep inside.
The certainty of disaster
intensified with the pain.
Desperation overcame her.
She surrendered to prayer.

She begged 'til she couldn't
wring further a sound
Crumpled in helplessness,
in vulnerability she drowned.
A feeling welled up in her chest,
and she knew she'd been heard.
And an outcome directed
for better or worse.

The woman's breath quickened
and she knew it was time.
A child's cry pierced the moonlight,
blood trickled down her thigh.
She called for the baby,
relief thick on her breath.
The man whispered quietly,
while the child, she wept.

"These gifts we are given,
so often ignored,
Granted before desire breaches insight,
before mercy is implored.

"Unbeknownst to us,
this loving hidden here.
Wedged between the everything we ache for,
and the nothingness we fear.

"My friends, don't you know me?
Throw open your fickle eye...
can't you see in me the same
you prayed to save him?

"Are you blind to the divine?"

She looked up,
a sun raining through his eyes.
And the moonlight trickling earthward,
but a shadow of his smile.
All of life, in an instant.
Every moment, like a game.
Every plea we make for
light to beckon homeward,
stands before us a flame.