Seventeen

That summer she let me hold her hand

And took my boyhood by surprise

Yet still I fail to understand

The hidden longing in her eyes

Not a soul might well have seen

What hands and eyes can sometimes mean

But I was blind and seventeen

That summer I bolted from the truth

Just as my sleeping heart began

To sense the sunrise of my youth

But I was still more boy than man

Lust in the language lies between

The life to come and seventeen

At seventeen you know it all

You're riding high and talking tall

You're no one's fool and no one's child

The world and you were running wild

The charm you've drawn from films and books

A strong-nosed face, approving looks

You lived the script, you looked the part

Yet you're a stranger to the heart

That summer she woke me with a kiss

And yet the prey refused the bait

The silence beckoned me to bliss

But to my shame, I saw too late

It wasn't red she meant, but green

And now I see what might have been

When I was blind and seventeen

That summer a part of me was burned

These days my act is well-rehearsed

But though I've lived, and loved, and learned

Each new affair is like the first

And I relive that summer scene

When I was blind and seventeen