Porch Parties & Festival Dreams

Lyrics

The air gets thick around four o'clock.
Sweet with jasmine, heavy with the day.

A bead of sweat on a glass of tea.
The slow creak of the wicker chair on the painted floorboards.
Neighbors talking low across the potted ferns,
about the city, about the heat, about the roots of the old oaks.
This is the long, slow breath of the afternoon.
The quiet currency we trade in, day by day.

And in the quiet hum of a summer evening,
Between the porch parties and the passing cars,
We dream a bigger dream.
A thousand lights strung up between the gables,
A river of faces down Elizabeth Street.

I remember hearing stories of that first one.
Spring of 'seventy-two.
Just a picnic, they said. A way to meet the people
who were trying to hold these houses up with hope and hammers.
Azaleas blooming wild in Springvale Park,
a makeshift stage, a borrowed guitar,
selling art from blankets on the ground.
A small act of defiance dressed up as a party.

And in the quiet hum of a summer evening,
Between the porch parties and the passing cars,
We dream a bigger dream.
A thousand lights strung up between the gables,
A river of faces down Elizabeth Street.

From a simple blanket to a city-wide parade.
From a shared plate of food to a hundred different stalls.
We didn't just save the wood and the windows.
We saved the space between the houses.
The places where a conversation starts,
where a festival is born.

The last booth is packed away.
The streets are quiet now.
Just the porch lights, one by one,
holding the dark at bay.
Waiting for the afternoon.
And the next dream.