The Penny in My Father's Loafer

Lyrics

My father never left the house
Without his wallet, keys, and a quiet mouth.
But in the toe of his left shoe, the left one only,
A piece of copper kept him from feeling lonely.
A Lincoln cent, from a year he liked the sound of,
Slipped inside his Bass Weejuns, the ones he was so proud of.
A superstition from his father, James, who saw the thirties,
Said a man needs something small to carry his own worries.

It was just a penny in a loafer,
A little prayer against the world.
Not for the money, but the meaning,
A silent promise, a story told.
A secret piece of copper armor,
Worth more than silver, more than gold.

I remember mornings in the kitchen, him by the back door light.
The smell of Folgers coffee, the sun not yet too bright.
He'd be bent over, lacing up, a man already tired.
And he'd fish a penny from the dish of loose change he'd acquired.
He'd rub it with his thumb, like a worry stone,
A little private moment, meant for him alone.
I asked him once, he just smiled and said,
"Keeps you walking honest, son. Keeps you straight ahead."

The leather cracked, the soles wore through.
There's only so much a shoe can do.
And years go by like falling rain,
You don't get to see him again.
But metal holds a memory,
Longer than a man, you see.
It holds the dark, it holds the heat.
It remembers the sound of his feet.

Now his closet smells of cedar, and the shoes just stand in rows.
The laces stiff, the leather cold, is how the story goes.
And all the miles are in the past, a map you can't retrace.
There's just a hollow in the morning, an empty, quiet space.
I keep waiting for the sound of his footsteps on the floor,
But there’s just the wind now, rattling the door.

Last week, in his bedside table, under a stack of unpaid bills,
I found that little glass dish, sitting cold and still.
Full of Lincoln heads, all facing up, a hundred little suns.
All the journeys he was planning, the walks he never runs.
I took one out, nineteen seventy-two.
Put it in my own left shoe.
What else is a son supposed to do?