The Fountain Remembers

(soft guitar over a water-run texture, an autumn square)
The fountain remembers.
I came to pay my old wishes interest,
and there you were, counting yours.

October, and the square wears amber,
the coins still shine below the spray.
I knew your walk before your face.
You tried my name like a question.
I answered with your own.

We bought two coffees from the corner,
you still take one sugar, slow.
Some things the heart keeps filed
where the years can't go.

The fountain remembers
what the market square forgot:
who said goodbye first, and why —
the water kept what we could not.

We traded twenty summers
in careful, smiling pieces.
Your left hand wore no answer,
and neither, love, did mine.
One small table set for no one —
the square arranged it fine.

The fountain remembers
what the market square forgot:
who said goodbye first, and why —
the water kept what we could not.

(oud and guitar trade the melody, strings gathering under the spray)

Here's what undoes me gently:
you came back here too, all along —
you came Octobers, I came Junes,
two pilgrims missing by a season.
Twenty small coins under the lanterns,
two wishes circling one address.

(her voice joins his, a true duet at last)
The fountain remembers (remembers)
what the market square forgot:
who said goodbye first, and why —
the water kept what we could not. (kept it)

(water and guitar, evening bells far away)
Same square. Same water. New beginning.
The fountain remembers — now so do we.