A woman my age, sittin’ here cryin’   I oughta be stronger than I am   Oughta take comfort in wisdom or something like that   But it isn’t that way, ‘cause sooner or later   I’m still that nervous ninth grader   Watching you pull us together, I never knew how      And since you’ve been gone I’m just fallin’ apart   There’s a hole in my life, in my soul, in my heart   And I stare out this window till light becomes dark   And there’s nothing that’s touching me now      But not to complain, we’re just bereft, not deserted   Lord knows you’re rest was deserved   It’s just your absence is present in all that I do   In the sun in the field, in the poem I keep saying   In the hymn that some church bells were playing   You have always been part of them but I never knew      How could I ever begin to say?   Surely you already knew   What is this world with you gone away?   How can this finally be true?