The neighbor up the road brought the message  Joe and May never had a phone  Five children grown and gone to college  Now they lived out on Pewaukee Lake alone  And the nurse at the big Milwaukee hospital  Said "We've got a baby here with no eyes  It's retarded, it's got cerebral palsy  Six months old living only to die  And we remembered the tiny Englishwoman  Used to hire out as a nurse-governess  May Lemke, will you take this broken child off our hands?"  And God loves a fool 'cause she said yes. She said:  CHORUS:  Leslie is different  Like everyone in the world  He's kind of awkward, he's kind of fragile  Kind of graceful, kind of tough  He's kind of slow, he's kind of clever  He's just Leslie and that's enough.  He just lay there helpless and silent  Not a tear, not a smile, not a word  But they held him and rocked him and sang him to sleep  And talked to him as if he really heard  And he grew with the sun and affection  Though his body was spindly and small  And a hundred times they stood him with his hands upon the fence  And a hundred times watched him fall  And their daughters warned it was useless  They said, "Mama, that boy will break your heart."  She said, "Love never comes easy  And miracles mostly come hard." She said:  CHORUS  May used to play the piano  And sing the old songs from the war  There was always music on the radio  And the records she bought at the store  And sometimes they swore he was listening  Though of course there was no way to know  Maybe he was flying in his own blue sky  Where no one else would ever go  Maybe he was lost in a forest  Where demons and woodspirits dwell  But for sixteen years he had never spoke a word  Never taken one step for himself. But they said:  CHORUS  Along about three in the morning  A ripple of music broke the night  Joe's fallen asleep at the TV again  May reached over to turn on the light  But the music kept getting louder  And the TV was quiet and cold  Leslie was playing the piano  And his fingers were agile and bold  A Tchaikovsky piano concerto  Like water breaking over a dam  A river of ecstasy flowed through his hands  And each note cried out, "I am." Because  CHORUS