Sorrow and Joy

We've had some good times In photographs you see us laughing and carrying on White shirts on the clothesline Outside flapping like misshapen flags And where are the claims that we staked when we sank in the mire Motion suspended like stillness of birds on a wire Look, in good order from tallest to smallest Dressed up for shot Some of us got to go on with our lives The ones that leave holes are the ones that did not And if you believe you will see them again over Jordan And if you're not sure, you will plant them a tree in the garden Sorrow and joy are not oil and water They're hater and lover, they inform each other Attract and repel make us sick make us well But in the end we must hold them together On the day that President Reagan was shot You skipped home from school thinking this was good news We surrounded you horrified broke you to tears But we force fed you politics beyond your years And after you died it was me who had cried At the memory Some things would fade But that image is clear as the day to me Sorrow and joy Now you're a still life, a rose on the table Forever a child My desperate desire just to ask you some questions Your school picture staring back at me a smile Plays on your face like the best of the times that we knew And how the negative lights up the darkness in you Sorrow and joy are not oil and water