Ewan wrote this song
for his mother.
She went out office cleaning.
She walks in the cold, dark hour
before the morning
The hour when wounded
night begins to bleed
Stands at the back of the patient queue
The silent, almost sleeping few
Seeing no one and not being seen
Working shoes are wrapped in
working apron
Rolled in an oilcloth bag across her knees
The swaying tram as
saults the morning steely
Blue -grey day is dawning
Draining the last few
dregs of sleep away
Over the bridge and the writhing
foul black water
Down through empty
corridors of stone
Each of the blind glass walls she passes
Shows her twin in sudden flashes
Which is the mirror im age,
which is real?
Crouching hooded gods
of word and number
Accept her bent -backed as her due
The bucket steamed like incense coils
Across the endless floor she toils
Cleaning the same wide sweep
each day anew.
Glistening sheen of new
washed floor is fading.
There where of his clocks are marking time,
Night's black tide has ebbed away
Past cliffs of glass awash with day.
She hurries from her labors, still unseen
He who lies beside her does
not see her
Notice the child that once lay at her breast
The shroud of self -denial covers
eager girl and tender lover,
only the fated servant now is left,
how could it be
that no one saw her drowning,
how did we come to be so unaware,
at what point did she cease to be her,
when did we cease to see her,
how is it no one knew
That she was there