Nora

Richard Shindell

New York has been buried in snow since last Saturday
The papers said the storm had passed over you

Thank you for the play you wrote about Heloise
And her injury at the hand of an almighty memory

And I might have guessed you'd press
A rose in the pages
Where Abelard confesses
His love and his pain
To her lips

And Nora, it was no sin
They could turn the other cheek
And take it on the chin
But Nora, it was no sin

So Christmas was as blue for you as it was for me
All those angels trumpeting their ecstasy

Your husband has accepted the parish in Greenland
I met him drowning his vows at the bar

And there we raised
The first and the next
And a third glass to you
Hunched on our bar-stools
Calling our truce
By your name

And Nora, there is no sin
We can turn the other cheek
And take it on the chin

But Nora, there is no sin
Nora, there is no sin
Nora, there is no sin