Charlie the Weatherman

It was Charlie who taught me to ride on a bike
It was Charlie who taught me 'bout flyin' a kite
It was Charlie who taught me the beauty of dreams
He'd say "Life's so much more than it seems"

He looked like a scarecrow so ragged and thin
When he knocked at the farmhouse door
I could tell that my mother was nervous at first
With my father away in the war
He said he was hungry from waking so far,
But a handout never would do
"Now my name is Charlie and for something to eat
I could predict the weather for you"

He talked of the talent with which he was blessed
"It's an odd sort of gift," he explained
"But the Lord makes the weather and I just observe
And only a fool could complain"
As night time was falling we asked him to stay
And he camped by the sycamore trees
My mother asked "What will you do if it rains?"
Charlie smiled and said, "Just leave the weather to me"

In the wandering breeze I can hear again
The song that Charlie the weatherman sang
Sweet breath of God blow he clouds away
'Til I walk in the light of that endless spring day

Now Charlie stayed with us as days turned to weeks
It seemed that somehow he belonged
And I'd always tease him when he watched the sky
But his forecasts never were wrong
And Charlie would tell me a story each night
From the tattered old bible he read
"Winter or summer, spring time or fall
It's the weather inside us that matters" he said.

One morning at breakfast he seemed a bit sad
With a far away look in his eyes, "Storms rollin' in"
That was all he said though there wasn't a cloud in the sky
The last time I saw him he waved his old hat
As he stood at the of the hill
He left me his bible and in it he wrote
"Keep your eyes on the sky" and I always will
And it rained and rained like the tears I cried
The day that Charlie the weatherman died
And the wind has carried his heart away
Past the silver-lined clouds to that endless spring day