Well Done
for Mildred Dolores Orr

[intro]

[verse]
I knew your hands before the roses did,
before the cold back room, before the shop.
You wrapped up other people's brightest days
and carried lilies in when their world stopped.

And nobody kept a ledger of the cost,
the six a.m., the aching, all those years.
I kept it. Not one morning has been lost.
I was standing in the doorway. I was near.

[chorus]
I kept a room where the light comes in at four.
I made it up myself, and it is ready.
Set the whole load down outside the door,
you won't need it here, and I know that it's heavy.
Nothing good you gave away is gone,
and no one you've been missing has been lost.

[verse]
You laid a table longer than the kitchen.
Five chairs, and then the years filled every one.
You went across the world and saw the far countries,
came home, and hung the washing in the sun.

You kept the letters for a man who worked in bronze.
He poured out horses that outlived his name.
I have been that patient with you all along.
What I have made in you will do the same.

[chorus]
(repeat)

[bridge]
Ninety-four years, and I watched every one,
the ones the world could see, and the ones it missed.
They call you Grandmother in a house full of your children.
The old photographs still call you Sissy.
I knew you first.
You fought it out, you finished, and you kept the faith.
You were faithful with a few small things,
now look what I am handing you.
Well done.
Well done, good and faithful.

[chorus]
I kept a room where the light comes in at four.
I made it up myself, and it is ready.
Set the whole load down outside the door,
you won't need it here, and I know that it's heavy.

[outro]
Nothing left to prove now. Nothing left to do.
The light is on, the table's set, the door is standing wide.
Everyone you're missing is a little way inside.
Come on in, come on in.
Well done, Sissy. Come on in the house.