Henry's Songbook

There you are with your three-score years and ten
And you're telling me it's extra time from here on in
Your children grown, you live alone, keeping busy all the while
But I wonder what it is I sometimes see behind your smile

Worlds turn, candles burn, children learn a different song
And at times you find it hard to sing along
The rhythms are all strange to you
And the words don't seem to rhyme
But the women of today were born of women of your time

And here I am at the mid-time of my life
Making choices you never had, moving into overdrive
And looking over my shoulder I can see her coming on
Treading in my footsteps and making them her own

Worlds turn, candles burn, children learn a different song
And at times I find it hard to sing along
The rhythms are all strange to me
And the words don't seem to rhyme
But the women of today were born of women of my time

And there she stands at fifteen, not yet woman, no longer child
Her future is uncertain but her dreams are running wild
And looking back in fifty years I wonder what she'll find
Will things have been so different for a woman of her time

Here we are, the three of us, all women of our time

[1986:] Written in 1985. My mother, me, and my niece: three generations, different life experiences and expectations, but still with much in common as women. (Judy Small Songbook 52)