Splashing through rain to hospital 

to where my heart lies weeping,

I hold her hand as she lies sleeping,

and so it goes, and so it goes.

My mother wears the ring she wore

more than  seventy years before,

a girl pledged to a sailor-boy,

who'd lived through war,

survived, a vision in her eyes 

and so it goes, and so it goes.

This orphan made it home to her

to build a life with scarce resources

forces upon them work, money,  children

and so it goes, and so it goes.

On a mild mid-September day

we buried this man she loved,

and now I try to help her live 

without him.

I'm doing all I can

but failing, failing, failing

and so she goes, and so she truly goes.