Five-Year Plan (Updated)

There’s a little yellow house

With tulips in the yard,

Home to a pair of dreamers

And an angel on the way.

One of them’s a teacher.

Her husband is a bard

Who sits at a computer

Making problems go away.

The echo from a timeless love

A love that first began

When she asked him to talk about

His “perfect five-year plan.”

There’s a little library

Inside that yellow house,

A studio where students come

To learn the clarinet,

A kitchen big enough to please

The more attractive spouse,

And two young hearts forevermore

As full as they can get.

They’re thinking of the day he said

“I want to be your man,”

The first of many steps within

His perfect five-year plan.

You’ll never hear a hateful word

Be spoken bu them there.

They never let an apple sit

On any empty chair.

They smile at every photograph

Hung on the family wall,

But they won’t say what happens when

The captain comes to call.

And when the five year plan was done

And the house was home to four

He’d renew the five-year plan

Another lifetime more.

But there’s a little yellow house,

For-sale sign on the lawn.

It never was the home for them

The bard had counted on.

Turns out a five-year plan for two

Won’t work with only one

No matter how much someone cries

When they know that it’s done.

The perfect lifelong five-year plan

In three months was complete,

But when you love someone that much

You can’t call it defeat.

The sun still shines, the waves still crash,

There’s still a dusk and dawn.

The leaves are green, the rain is wet,

His eyes are nearly clear.

Just like the clouds that once were grey,

His heart is moving on

From yellow houses, unborn kids,

The teacher, and his fear.

The one thing he won’t leave behind

And knows he never can

Are memories that came to life

Thanks to a five-year plan.