POET, SONGWRITER, CLIMATE ACTIVIST

We live our lives in a spiral

That begins and ends in a year

And still we exclaim, “Is it always the same?

Will a FUTURE ever appear?”

(Will a true future ever appear?)

 

Goodbye to a year that lies frozen

In habits forever engrained

With the tyrants enclosed

     in their stock market castles

With silk-puckered gowns & brocade

 

And we reach out to say

We won’t go there again

But it keeps going round

     in our lives and our brains

And the powers that be still remain

 

Goodbye to the children in cages

Mad rulers who bluster and rage

Hello to the unions of lovers and leapers

The she’s and the he’s and they’s

                                   

Chorus 

And we’ll be singing

A new beginning

And we’ll be living

The earth’s own song

 

We’ll be her friend

Not her extractors

Be her servants

Seeking to mend

 

There’s a school that surrounded by gardens

A prairie and two thousand trees

That they planted themselves

     in the dirt that they’ve held

Like the frogs that slip into the stream

And they’ll watch it unfold

    as they come to know

What it means to be humble and green

 

Goodbye to the murder of black men

As they stand or they walk or they speak

The knee on the neck, the shots in the back

No questions, no pause, no relief

No questions, no pause, no release

 

And hello to the wonder of

Knowing each other

Our music, our histories revealed

Our voices and yearnings

Our failures and turnings

Give us grace to recover ourselves

Give us grace to discover ourselves     

 

Chorus

At the edge of the sky there’s a window

Where the faces of others arise

Through the mist of a jungle

The breath of a tunnel

And a village still rich and alive

 

The children leap into the river

They lift up their faces and shiver

Haul sunfish in hands for their dinner

And laugh the world back with their eyes

And laugh the world back with their lives

           

[Repeat 1st stanza]