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