The Mallard

[Verse 1]
I still remember how we played together now
You in the water and me on the land
I'd call, and you'd follow me, people would smile at us
Taking their pictures of you in my hand

[Verse 2]
There in the city a park we could stay in
A pool you could swim and an island for home
Young ones each summer you raised to the water
Then stayed for the cold as they left you alone

[Verse 3]
You were my beauty, my peace and my pleasure
A friend I could come to as both of us aged
Wild and not knowing that freedom's a treasure
The city's a prison but you were uncaged

[Verse 4]
So how could they leave you to live with your freedom
To share time and silence with one quiet boy?
For all things of beauty they could not believe in
They could not conceive so they had to destroy

[Verse 5]
I saw them laughing and running together
Clutching the red stones and chanting my name
Jeering and joking they left me forever
To search for the meaning, to carry the shame

[Verse 6]
For I found you broken, battered and bleeding
Someone found me wandering late in the night
And all I could ask him was how could it happen
And why should it happen and who could I fight?

[Verse 7]
My father came calling me, angry and frightened
And as I cried constantly he was afraid
Quietly telling me that I was growing
To live in the world as the world had been made

[Verse 8]
But could I believe in the love he had promised
The dream he had painted in which I could live?
If somebody smashes the love that you offer
There's less that you show and there's less you can give

[Verse 9]
And I still remember how we played together now
You in the water and me on the land
But it's been so hard not to carry the hatred
And try though I have, I still can't understand