Bonus - A Dog Called Regret (final)

I wandered down a valley low, Where time moved soft and the wind moved slow. A man appeared with fiddle strings, And spoke of loss and stranger things. He said his name was simply Joe. His dog — Regret — walked on below. We walked beside a winding stream, Past lines of laundry, smoke and steam. Joe said, "This town's a gentle place, With crooked doors and open grace. But if you chase the truth too fast, You'll miss the future and the past." I stayed a while, the days were kind, But something strange still worked my mind. The baker baked in a paper crown, The mayor danced the valley down. And no one asked me where I'd been — They only asked me what I'd seen. [Instrumental] A graveyard sat beyond the trees, No chapel near, no rosaries. No bell had ever called them home — Just grass, and names, and quiet stone. I knelt and read the dates in line. Not one of them had made it nine. "All of them children?" I asked. No answer came. The wind moved past. I turned to Joe there in the grass — He lit his pipe and then sat down. "They were all grown," he said. "But—" "These are the years they truly lived, Not counted what the seasons give. A name, a flame, a voice once heard — Still louder than the final word. So when we carve the final line, We mark the years that held a shine." [Instrumental] I stayed until the moon grew thin, Then took a stone and cut one in. Not for the dying — for the flame: One honest year beside my name. I thanked old Joe and tipped my hat For talk that cut right through the fat. The valley taught me how to see What living means, and how to be. Regret, I said goodbye to last — No use in holding to the past. The graveyard stood without a church But held the answer to my search. Then I remembered what Joe meant: "These are the years they truly burned, Not numbered by the time we earned. A name, a flame, a voice once heard — Still louder than the final word. Not every year deserves a mark — Just the ones that caught a spark." [Instrumental] The years don't tally in a line, Or rest beneath a marble sign. They live in hearts, in songs we leave, In every soul we dared believe. The words we spoke, the love we gave Outlast the stone, outshine the grave. So mark the flame, not just the years — The joy, the fight, the laughs, the tears. Go live the years that matter most, And weigh your days in love, not cost. And when they cut your final line — may it be high. May it be nine.