My Mother’s Quiet Eyes

My Mother’s Quiet Eyes
by Jon Cobert & Tom Chapin
© 2006 Red Wagon Music & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)

My mother is an artist, been one all her life,
While she was busy being daughter, sister,
Lover, worker, wife.
But her quiet eyes kept watch
All through every hard-work day
’Til she found the time
To shape the world her way.

Life's not what it should be,
You learn that early on
When you’re the eldest daughter
Of a marriage that goes wrong.
But through 80 years, through all the tears
For loved ones who have died,
She's held onto the artist there inside.

And when we'd wound ourselves
As children sometimes do,
She's the one who we would run home to.
And I still, to my surprise,
Seek approval in her eyes,
In my mother's quiet eyes.

A family is a lonely ship
That we are thrust into.
She had six boys,
A joyful noise with such a rowdy crew.
But sewing was a refuge,
A quiet in the storm,
A secret place that somehow kept her warm.

She'd take a piece of fabric,
She'd pin it on the wall.
Colors, shapes and patterns,
She would use them all.
A small idea to build upon,
To carry through each day,
’Til home at night to shape her art her way.

And though we've moved away
As children someday do,
She's the one who we all come home to.
And I still, to my surprise,
Seek the light there in her eyes,
In my mother's quiet eyes.

My mother is an artist, I'm an artist's son.
And when things get a little rough,
I think what she has done.
I try to keep a watch
All through another hard-work day
’Til I find the time to shape the world my way.

And though I've moved away
As children someday do,
She's the one who we all come home to.
And I still, to my surprise,
Seek the light there in her eyes,
In my mother's quiet eyes.
In my mother's quiet eyes.

This song appears on Tom Chapin's The Turning Of The Tide CD.

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