Yellow Pages & Purple Pansies
Music & Lyrics by David Greathouse
© 2001, Sourdough Music, ASCAP

I was emptying the space where you took your final rest
In the corner of your bedroom at a cluttered folding desk
And though I don't recall the details, to this I can attest
It was a mess

There were toothpicks, felt tips, paper clips, and glue
A Mason jar of brushes sporting years of spattered use
Rubber bands, sequins, and a razor blade or two
A wooden plaque upon a stack of fancy paper that you used
A ball of yarn, a box of beads, and a arsenal of tools
A cigar box of scissors and little wooden spools
On a pile of colored paper in some kind of sticky goo

A big blue box with little drawers housed the sorted sort of tid-bit
Labeled Thumbtacks, Glue Sticks, Cotton Balls, Velcro Strips, and Q-Tips
There were magic markers, tempera paints, and watercolor tins
And boxes inside boxes to keep other boxes in
And at the bottom of the back beneath the desk in that small room
Sat forty some-odd phone books
White and yellow pages too

Yellow pages full of purple pansies
Johnny Jump Ups and Queen Anne's Lace
Only remnants of a memory from another time and place
"Those were the days," I heard me say

A fixture of my childhood
Long, scenic trips across state lines
From the North down to the South lands
With less urgency than time
"Wake up and brush your hair
We're gettin' close. We're almost there"
And she'd be waiting there to greet us
With something fine to feed us every time

She'd pack a picnic and a phone book and a jar of cold sweet tea
And we'd wander through the backwoods
Just my daddy's mom and me
We'd find helicopter seed pods and lots of odds and ends
And she'd put 'em in those phone books she kept full right to the end
Wildflowers from the wildwood
Cultivated and refined
Into four by six inch masterworks
I still read from time to time
"Happy Birthday!" "Merry Christmas!"
"Won't you be my Valentine?"
And these sentiments would reach us
In her cure for "idle neatness" right on time
There were natural, southern fibers
Woven through the things she'd say
Metaphors for living gladly
Age to age and day to day

In your absence you attend us
With each blossom that you pressed
In the pages of those phone books
You kept beneath that cluttered folding desk
And as far as I remember, unless I mess my guess
You never sent a Hallmark
But you sent the very best

Yellow pages full of purple pansies
Johnny Jump Ups and Queen Anne's Lace
Only remnants of a memory from another time and place
Those were the days. Those were the days