Our Initials Are Still on the Desk

Lyrics

The school is being painted and the classrooms stand half bare
The chairs are stacked in corridors, there's chalk dust in the air
I found the desk by the window where I used to sit and dream
Two sets of letters, shallow, carved beneath the afternoon's last beam

We did it with a compass in a lesson about rivers
We thought that it was forever, we were certain, we were sixteen
The teacher never noticed, or perhaps she looked away
And let the small things grow into the things that stay

Our initials are still on the desk
Though the years have gone their way
Two small marks in the old brown wood
That the sunlight lights today
I don't know where you are tonight
But I know where you once were
Our initials are still on the desk
And the winter light is warm

I ran my thumb along the grooves, they're softer than I thought
The rivers on the whiteboard, all the lessons that we taught
Each other without trying, in the corridors and stairs
And the quiet way that someone's always there

Our initials are still on the desk
Though the years have gone their way
Two small marks in the old brown wood
That the sunlight lights today
I don't know where you are tonight
But I know where you once were
Our initials are still on the desk
And the winter light is warm

The painters will come on Monday
And the wood will be made new
But I'll carry what was carved here
Wherever I go through

Our initials are still on the desk
Though the years have gone their way
Two small marks in the old brown wood
That the sunlight lights today
I don't know where you are tonight
But I know where you once were
Our initials are still on the desk
And the winter light is warm

Two small marks
In the afternoon
Still warm