The Doorframe Keeps Our Heights

Lyrics

The boxes all are taped and labelled, stacked beside the stairs
The curtains gone, the echo's come to live in all our chairs
I walk from room to room and leave the lights on one by one
Until I reach the kitchen door where all our growing's done

Pencil lines in rising rows
Dates in Mother's slanting hand

The doorframe keeps our heights, the doorframe keeps our years
Every inch of who we were, every laugh and every tear
I can't take the wood with me, I can't fold the afternoon
But I'll carry every pencil line wherever I am going soon

Here's my brother, six years old, standing on his toes
Here's me at thirteen, sure that I was taller than I rose
The paint has gone around them, they have never been erased
Small and stubborn proof that we were here and we were placed

Pencil lines in rising rows
Dates in Mother's slanting hand

The doorframe keeps our heights, the doorframe keeps our years
Every inch of who we were, every laugh and every tear
I can't take the wood with me, I can't fold the afternoon
But I'll carry every pencil line wherever I am going soon

Someone else will measure children here
Someone else will mark the door
May they grow as tall and loved as we did
May the house hold them and more

I turn the key, I hear it click, I rest my hand a while
Upon the frame, upon the lines, and then I find a smile
A house is only walls and wood, but home is what was said
And I will keep it, every word, long after I have fled

The doorframe keeps our heights, the doorframe keeps our years
Every inch of who we were, every laugh and every tear
I can't take the wood with me, I can't fold the afternoon
But I carry every pencil line, and I'll be home again soon

Pencil lines in rising rows
Home goes with me when I go