Testo Ragtime-our children The Broadways

Ragtime-our children

MOTHER
How they play,
Finding treasure in the sand.
They're forever hand in hand,
Our children.

TATEH
How they laugh,
She has never laughed like this.

MOTHER
Every waking moment, bliss.

BOTH
Our children.

TATEH
See them running down the beach.
Children run so fast...

MOTHER
Toward the future...

TATEH
From the past.

MOTHER
How they dance,
Unembarrassed and alone.

BOTH
Hearing music of their own, Our children.

TATEH
One so fair,

MOTHER
And the other, lithe and dark.

BOTH
Solemn joy and sudden spark,
Our children.
See them running down the beach.
Children run so fast
Toward the future
From the past.
There they stand,
Making footprints in the sand,
And forever, hand in hand,
Our children.
Two small lives,
Silhouetted by the blue,
One like me
And one like you.
Our children.
Our children.

MOTHER
Well.

TATEH
You say that often. "Well".

MOTHER
It's because I don't know what to say, Baron.

TATEH
I'm not a Baron, of course. I'm a poor immigrant, a Jew,
who points a camera so that his child can dress as beautifully
as a princess. I want to drive from her memory every
tenement stench and filthy immigrant street. I will buy her
light and sun and clean wind of the ocean for the rest of her
life. Now you know me. Now you understand. I am no Baron.
I am Tateh.

MOTHER
Now I know even less what to say.

TATEH
Now it's my turn: Well.

MOTHER
Thank you for your confidence. I shall keep it here.