Their marriage wasn’t working out,
things were just coming unwound,
too much work and too much worry,
and nothing to do in that one-horse town.
So they chartered a boat plane from Corpus Christi,
followed the gulfstream breeze,
and from a forty-year-old postcard,
their words rang out to me…

“Oh, the ocean is beautiful, wish you were here,
we’re having a wonderful time.
Happy new year from Jamaica – 1959.”

They came to Kingston at Christmas Season,
there was a light in their eyes.
The food was spicy, the rum was smooth,
and, oh, the waves were like lullabies.
They fell in love all over again,
and it never once crossed their minds
their book of memories would travel so far

“Oh, the ocean is beautiful, wish you were here,
we’re having a wonderful time.
Happy new year from Jamaica – 1959.”

Well, I found that scrapbook up in the attic
after they’d both moved on,
and from those pages and Polaroids,
I learned a story I’d never known…

of how two lovers came to discover
how many things that they shared,
a black-haired boy, a blue-eyed girl
with tropical flowers in her hair,
the healing power of warm blue water
turning their hearts back around,
and nine months later, a child was born;
he’s singin’ to you now…

“Oh, the ocean is beautiful, wish you were here,
we’re having a wonderful time.
Happy new year from Jamaica – 1959.”