paper boats
There’s a land somewhere
beyond those mountains tall
that’s covered in a veil of joy;
and once every year,
all the people there
stand by the shores of the great big ocean
and wait for paper boats.
You look at me
with those secret eyes
but we both know that the truth is gone.
Can’t you remember? All those years
gone by, that we spent adrift
down the rivers of freedom?
Candles lit up the night,
floating lights on all sides
while you taught me a song
of scissors and glue…
Oh, red flowers and white petals,
take me back to the floating lights;
to pink paper cranes and
white candle hearts,
and I’ll sing you all the songs of the moon
while we row
down this river of yesterday.
When morning came I found myself
all alone in the sea.
And paper boats floated
on the waves
as though I’d made them in my sleep.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give
to go back to the floating lights!
To pink paper cranes and
white candle hearts
and all the nights we sat together
by the river-shores,
singing all the songs of the moon
while the stars dreamed on.
Wooden stalls
and noisy crowds…
Loud drums roaring,
cymbals crashing,
voices lifting in cacophonic harmony…
Oh, the trees were green
and the flowers red
when we folded our own paper boats
and sent them down t’wards the sea;
while all the others were
busy searching for
their paper planes way up in the sky.
And you gave me glue
and a pair of scissors
and I looked at you,
and you smiled at me.
And in that moment in the ocean
we were free
and we thought we were infinite…
Oh, will you please
just take me back
to red paper cranes
and white candle hearts
and all those nights we spent
’drift these waters blue…
Back then when all was light and clear,
and our hearts were free.