I wrote these lyrics back around 1978, when (and while!) I was working for the Environmental Protection Agency. In those days, to write a computer program meant waiting for it to "compile", which meant humans sitting around, waiting to check the output. A lot of these waits were considerable, so I did a lot of poetry. It wasn't until yesterday that I decided to put a tune to it, and I'm pleased with the result!

Now and then I close an eye
And think of moments passing by
They take our deeds
Like flower seeds
And plant them where we cannot see

Then without warning or a sound
The flowers burst out from the ground
They simply bloom
To summer's tune
Too late to question that they do

But things aren't always as they seem
Nightmares sometimes start as dreams
Thunderstorms begin as single drops of rain
What we're planting when we act
We can't know; but it's a fact
That gifts of love can sometimes bring pain

Things important yesterday
Are of no consequence today
'If we knew then what
We know now',
How different life would be!

And things that mattered not at all
Can sometimes blossom very tall
We cannot know
Before the fall
The leaps we should never have made at all

The thing that I am asking you:
Should we do as others do
Never knowing what or why or when?
Is it better to crash along
Maybe right and maybe wrong?
Learning from mistakes and not repeating them again!

'Cause things aren't always as they seem
Nightmares sometimes start as dreams
Thunderstorms begin as single drops of rain
What we're planting when we act
We can't know; but it's a fact
That gifts of love can sometimes bring pain.