Twenty-one months to seventeen years it's been since we last met

And then it was on a wintry day, a day I can never forget.

For I walked away and I held my love and I ruined myself with pride

So today I fly around the world to be back again by your side.

Fifteen years have slipped around since last we were together

And I've braved the world and I've braved bad debt

And I've braved all kinds of weather

But the bravest thing is yet to come, for the bravest thing I've done

Is to swallow my pride to be by the side

Of my twenty-one month old son.

Down in the cafes of Paris I sat, drinking the ice-cold beer,

And the nights were long, and the weeks passed by,

And the months turned into years.

Then back I came in a secret way,

I returned to the land of your birth

But my courage and funds and spirits sank low, so I got no further than Perth.

I fared no better that time around than the time I was there before,

So off I went with my money all spent to teach in Singapore.

I lasted six months in harness there, before it was time to go

And the scene looked black, and I wouldn't go back,

So off to Toronto.

Ten years I've lived in the frozen North, in filial isolation

And the guilt grew great for I didn't relate

To my youngest blood relation.

I'm thankful now for the mother's love that draws us together at last

To build from today sweet memories, and lay down ones of the past.

Sixty-six hours of thundering flight, then a three-day ride by bus

Is the price I pay to be able to say not "I", nor "He", but "Us"

It's taken so long to right this wrong, but perhaps we can start again

And twenty-one months to seventeen years

Will be nothing between us then.