Garfield's Quiet Streets

Lyrics

[Intro]
The click of a screen door latch.
That’s the loudest it gets.
Most afternoons.
On Garfield Avenue.

[Verse 1]
Nine AM on a Saturday.
The low sun cuts right under the eaves of the bungalows.
Makes the dust motes dance in the hallway.
A neighbor is pruning roses down on Kains.
The air smells of wet earth and brewing coffee.
And the sycamore trees just hold their breath,
waiting for the day to decide what it will be.

[Chorus]
And this is the quiet we came for, my love.
The gentle metronome of a life.
Porch light on, porch light off.
The familiar sound of your key in the lock.
This slow, steady turning of these quiet streets.
Our quiet streets.

[Verse 2]
Then the clock strikes three-thirty.
A distant school bell rings out, a single chime.
And the silence breaks, but only just.
The clatter of a scooter on the pavement.
A tribe of kids, a flash of red backpack.
Then the low hum of your engine in the drive.
Home from a world that rushes and demands.
Back to the place that simply waits.

[Chorus]
And this is the quiet we came for, my love.
The gentle metronome of a life.
Porch light on, porch light off.
The familiar sound of your key in the lock.
This slow, steady turning of these quiet streets.
Our quiet streets.

[Bridge]
There’s a little copper door next to the frame.
Too small for the mail.
Built for the milkman in nineteen-twenty-six.
His hands, then ours.
Like that Little Free Library down the block,
leaving a story for a stranger’s hands to find.
A quiet promise, passed down through the years.

[Outro]
The streetlights flicker on.
The houses pull the darkness in like a warm blanket.
One window after another goes gold.
And I just listen.
I listen.
To the sound of you, breathing next to me.
Here on Garfield's quiet street.