RHYTHM SAFARI

HIGH COUNTRY

 

There’s a girl who lives in the high country

Where the willows do not weep

And the rain falls softly and gently

And does not disturb her sleep

There’s  a girl who lives in the high country

Who lives on tea and dreams

And I know that she does not love me

But she plays the game so well

 

“Sit by my side and tell me boy

Is the Milky Way that far?

Is the universe really expanding?

Tell me who you are?”

 

I am a bondsman - a poor man

I am a ghettoman - I am a thief

Who saw the gutterman who has no compassion

Who heard the widow who cannot weep

In the backstreets, in the poor towns

I hear a thunder which cannot roll

Mine are the eyes that steal from the orphanage

A groveller, groping in the grime

Inside is a Congo-jungle-beast-lion-leopard-man

A tiger-man from Timbuktu

Even a lover-man strutting down the avenue

A winding river searching for the sea…

 

And she said that she understood me

She thought I was complex and sensitive

“Here” she said, “hold my hand,

And have a muffin!”

“Do you see the clouds boy?

Do you see the ship?

Do you see the duck?

Do you love me?”

 

Brick by brick the empire is crumbling

Stone by stone it cracks and folds

Dreams of phantoms plotting in the jungle

Vengeance in the elephant grass

Someone’s been at the liquor cabinet

She’s sure someone’s been wearing her shoes

All around her chaos and anarchy

Light and reason overthrown

“I’m sure” she says, “they will attack the embassy,

Take me home, take me home!

 

There’s a wind that blows through the high country

Where the mansion used to stand

And it blows through the broken down garden

Where she once held my hand.

La, la, la, la…