It is not the things we do - there is nothing we can do

There is nothing I do can, there is nothing I can do -

The night my baby girl just stopped her breathing
She was eleven weeks and in her cot
The silence woke me up and she's still living
By chance, by draw, by luck, by hap, by lot

Her father's cousin years before stopped breathing
One day asleep, eleven weeks old too
There was no warning silence, busy daytime
And there was nothing anyone could do

There is nothing I do can, there is nothing I can do -

The weeks and months and days and frightened hours
When I held tight and did not kill my daughter
Mad with horror and with nightmare voices
Desperate to die, I somehow faltered -

My second cousin died of desperation
The madness ringing also in her ears
For her no accidental interruption
They drowned together, all their hopes and fears

There is nothing I do can, there is nothing I can do -

There is no choice to wake in silent darkness
There is no choice to hear the doorbell ring
There is no choice to know a moment too late
There is no choice to change a single thing