maren's prayer...
for those who wait with patience...

It seems so unlikely…so inapt to sing a sad song. No man in the picture, in a way. Two women instead of one, since the boy never really was a man even if he grew up in jeans and flannel and two-day-old beards.

It doesn't matter what I want
It doesn't matter what I need
It doesn't matter if I cry
Don't matter if I bleed
You've been on a road
Don't know where it goes or where it leads

Where is the smooth tenor voice pleading for indulgence…for patience to allow time to grow more sensitive and caring? Where are the strong arms she grew to expect as a warm strength on a cold weary day? What happened to the man she married? What did she marry? Whom had she grown to love? How much of the person that she knew was really that person who stood in front of everyone proclaiming his love for her?

It doesn't matter what I want
It doesn't matter what I need
If you've made up your mind to go
I won't beg you to stay
You've been in a cage
Throw you to the wind you fly away

Who is walking away? Which of us has given up and which of us is holding on. Can either of us claim the high road? Can either of us blame the other? Why should you beg me to stay, when the me you knew no longer exists? Why should I beg you to stay when you’ve been betrayed by deception and foolishness? Which of us is right? Who between us really is wrong?

It doesn't matter what I want
It doesn't matter what I need
It doesn't matter if I cry
Doesn't matter if I bleed
Feel the sting of tears
Falling on this face you've loved for years

The features are softer even if they’re framed by gray hair and highlighted by age spots and wrinkles? Who did you lose and who have you gained? What did I push away in order to see someone new look back at me in my mirror? What did it profit me to gain my whole world and lose you?

No happy duet between boy and girl, but a new, bittersweet song with alto and soprano; the coda having yet to be written. How will the song end?

It Doesn't Matter
by Miss Alison Krause
and Union Station
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu4NZHJlJWk