Passing Afternoon

i spent a great deal of time thinking about this song. Sam compares the narrator of the song to the different seasons <b>summer, autumn, spring and winter = the narrator</b> also, the <b>Bougainvillea flower</b> is a <b>metaphor</b> for the woman's <b>heart.</b>

according to me, this is what the song is saying

There are times that walk from you Like some passing afternoon <b>there are instances in your life where things escape you

• he then proceeds to retell his personal experience with that </b>

Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon And she chose a yard to burn But the ground remembers her Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

<b>-he meets a married woman and has an affair with her she chooses to end it but he still remembers her their love (children) moves (stirs) her heart </b>

There are things that drift away Like our endless numbered days

<b>-he restates that there are things that drift away (this love in particular)</b>

Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made And she's chosen to believe In the hymns her mother sings Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

<b>-he complicates her life/marriage (messes up her bed) and she chooses to believe in the morals/beliefs of her mother (ie: trying to salvage the marriage) so she tries to pull out the love that was once in her marriage </b>

There are sailing ships that pass All our bodies in the grass

Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last And she's chosen where to be Though she's lost her wedding ring Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

<b>he (springtime) holds onto their love (children) until she lets it go and she chooses where she wants to be (with her husband) even though she lost her wedding ring (her love for her husband) somewhere near her misplaced heart (which is currently dead/dormant) </b>

There are things we can't recall Blind as night that finds us all

Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls But my hands remember hers Rolling around the shaded ferns Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned There are names across the sea Only now I do believe Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me But she'll mend his tattered clothes And they'll kiss as if they know A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

<b>he tucks the love to sleep but his hands remember hers he doesn't understand why she chose to go back to her husband but out of everyone she knows even though she's now faithful to her husband (the window has been closed) he still hopes that she thinks of him but instead she tries to mend the marriage with her husband and she'll kiss him but they'll both know they're together only because they're afraid of being alone. </b>

well that's my interpretation.. this song is simply beautiful.