Jack and Jane
a ballad
“Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved. Everything up to this point had been left unresolved. Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm. ‘Come in,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you shelter from the storm.’”
—Bob Dylan, Shelter from the Storm
Jane had tried to do her family proud.
She married in the church.
All the doubts never said aloud
got buried in the work.
She enjoyed the games of kings and queens.
She took pride in playing that role,
‘til one day her mother died,
and something inside her broke.
And all the love that’d come her way
turned cold in her chest.
She shut her eyes and looked ahead
praying that God knew best.
Then she got wise and started to drink.
Time pressed on, and she laid her tracks beneath.
Jack, he was a poet,
and Jane had read a book or two.
She’d even tried the pen herself,
but her words had never rung so true.
Jack’s words had pulled the strings
of many a young girl’s heart,
but Jane, she fell, straight to her knees.
She felt something inside her start.
God, it seemed, to point his way,
but she’d recently been wrong.
He left a trail of kindness,
and he sang a grateful song.
Visions of his amber eyes
pressed on her just like time.
The moon it shone itself a thief,
and he made his tracks beneath.
Every look between them,
drew sorrows from her soul.
She had tasted love before,
but it was bitter on its own.
They began to write each other.
The depths between them grew.
The candor became a poison
a beast that had to be subdued.
All those words between them,
they never escaped her mind.
She always longed to be for him
what he’d never been able to find.
He pretended not to know,
and she pretended not to see.
Every letter wove a great tapestry,
and they made their tracks beneath.
Jane had heard the sparrow’s song,
they’d even harmonized.
He could hear its lonesome call.
She’d seen it in his eyes.
She thought of him so much,
he became a line on her face.
She carried him within her
as she moved from place to place.
Each word unsaid between them
found form beneath Jack’s pen.
Until a sonnet filled the space
where something longed to begin.
Precious years eclipsed this need,
and they both laid tracks beneath.
This one sounds like a song!