Out There - Adam Jacobs

Safe behind these windows and these parapets of stone

Gazing at the people down below me

All my life I watch them as I hide up here alone

Hungry for the histories they show me

All my life I memorize their faces

Knowing them as they will never know me

All my life I wonder how it feels to pass a day

Not above them, but part of them

And out there, living in the sun

Give me one day out there

All I ask is one to hold forever

Out there, where they all live unaware

What I’d give, what I’d dare

Just to live one day out there

Out there among the millers and the weavers and their wives

Through the roofs and gables I can see them

Every day they shout and scold and go about their lives

Heedless of the gift it is to be them

If I were in their skin, I’d treasure every instant

Out there, strolling by the Seine

Taste a morning out there, like ordinary men

Who freely walk about there

Just one day and then I swear I’ll be content

With my share

Won’t resent, won’t despair

Old and bent, I won’t care

I’ll have spent one day out there