Patterns

    Dm          
The night sets softly

                         F    Dm     
With the hush of falling le-e-eaves,

                     
Casting   shivering shadows

                          C            
On the houses through the trees,

        Dm                  
And the light from a street lamp

                       F    Dm   
Paints a pattern on my wa-a-all,

                       C
  Like the pieces of a puzzle

     Bb      C        Dm           
Or a child's   uneven scrawl


     Dm                  
Up a narrow flight of stairs

                   F    Dm   
In a narrow little ro-o-oom,

                  
As I lie upon my bed

                     C            
In the early evening gloom.

  Dm                 
Impaled on my wall

                  F    Dm   
My eyes can dimly se-e-e

                   C
 The pattern of my life

        Bb     C        Dm        
And the puzzle  that is me.


         Dm              
From the moment of my birth

                     F    Dm    
To the instant of my de-e-eath,

                           
There are Patterns I must follow

                            C             
Just as I must breathe each breath.

       Dm             
Like a rat in a maze

                   F    Dm   
The path before me li-i-ies,

                       C
 And the pattern never alters

  Bb  C        Dm          
Until  the rat dies.


        Dm                  
And the pattern still remains

                           F    Dm    
On the wall where darkness fe-e-ell,

                          
And it's fitting that it should,

                        C            
For in darknesss I must dwell.

         Dm                
Like the color of my skin,

                       F     Dm   
Or the day that I grow o-o-o-old,

                   C
My life is made of Patterns

         Bb       C      Dm             
That can scarcely  be controlled.