Wish I was there

I haven't loved an Irish pub since I heard her play the banjo, twenty years ago.

It's a dry summer in L'Enfant Plaza
and even the morning air has more dust than dew,
So I think of an amazing evening
and someone I knew.
It's hard work on the floor
and there's no music
The output is robotic, but it's true
I've never really loved
an Irish pub since her
Or felt like a maniac the
music and banjo playing since she played
"O Danny Boy"
on a cold winter's night in 2002;
and she was everything and the music was everything,
so I really
Wish I was there now too.

It's all right, twenty-four years later.
I barely remember how much I forgot
how much that wasn't amazing
how much I got through
by the skin of my teeth
just glad that it was over.

And I can't remember - can you -
so many years later
how many things never happened because after all
when the time came
we never learned how to start.

And I can't remember - can you -
how to fully recall an amazing evening?
When we go into an Irish pub now, all around
the music is just drowned out by the conversation
of young strangers and people
who learned to laugh out loud;
Amidst all that joy, all we feel
is out of place.

When I want to feel at peace
I listen to "O Danny Boy" on a walk amid the trees
the song blocking out traffic sounds,
until I walk back to you.