Victorian Verandas: Porch Life in Grant Park

Lyrics

The sun is low on Cherokee Avenue.
The day's long heat admits defeat.
Pavement's still warm beneath my feet.

And there you are, Queen Anne in white.
All gingerbread and fading light.
Fish-scale shingles on your gabled face.
A silent witness to this time and place.
A little turret like a folded hand,
watching over this promised land.
I can almost see the scroll saw's blur,
the unnamed hands of him and her.

The swing chain makes a memory of a sound.
As the cicadas start to spin their stories 'round.

On the Victorian veranda.
The world slows down to your command.
A quiet story, a held-out hand.
Half inside and half in the street,
where the private heart and the public meet.
A theater for the neighborhood.

Down the block, a different shape of true.
Tapered columns, stone and wood, so new.
A Craftsman bungalow, built for the breeze.
Hiding deep beneath the water oak trees.
I smell the varnish from 1910,
the hammers falling, again and again.
A home for living, not just for show.
A sturdy place for kids to grow.

The steps are worn from coming and from going.
A century of secrets, barely showing.

On the welcoming veranda.
The world slows down to your command.
A promised story, a held-out hand.
Half inside and half in the street,
where the private heart and the public meet.
A theater for the neighborhood.

And up there, look, the screened-in room.
A sleeping porch to fight the coming gloom
of a breathless Georgia night in June.
Just a canvas cot beneath the moon.
Breathing in the honeysuckle on the breeze.
Hearing whispers from the 1890s in the trees.

The porch lights flicker, one by one.
The public day is truly done.
Yellow beacons in a row.
A silent promise for tomorrow.
Another evening we can borrow...
a little peace...
on your veranda.