A Thousand Quiet Evening

Yet somehow, I am not alone.

They never knew my name,
They never saw my face,
But somehow through their stories,
They found a little place.

Oh, a thousand quiet evenings,
A thousand lives I've never known.
Through every page, through every feeling,
I never have to walk alone.
And when the final words are spoken,
Their worlds may disappear from view,
But something of the lives I've borrowed
Will always stay with me, too.

Raskolnikov walks through the snow,
With guilt that only he can know.
Gatsby watches the green light shine,
Still reaching for a vanished time.

A portrait hides what beauty costs,
A creature wonders what he's lost.
And somewhere, on a little star,
A rose is loved for what we are.

I cannot meet them in the morning,
Or hear their footsteps in the rain.
But I have carried all their stories,
And felt their joy, their doubt, their pain.

Perhaps the pages have grown old,
Perhaps the ink will fade away.
But every life that I have entered
Has left a light along the way.

Oh, a thousand quiet evenings,
A thousand lives I've come to know.
Through every dream and every sorrow,
There are still more worlds to go.
And when I close the final chapter,
The room returns, the night turns blue.
But I am not the one who opened
That book the same way I close it, too.

One more page before the morning,
One more world before I sleep.
Somewhere, all those borrowed people
Have a place I'll always keep.