Crowds of Xhosas gathered at the pool
At the Gxara River in the Transkei
a pool between some trees and flowering plants
is linked with one of the most emotional
and painful stories in history.
At the pool a young medium named Nonqawuse
spoke with the ancestral spirits
while bathing and looked into the water
seeing their faces.
They promised to drive the white man away,
provided that the Xhosa nation
would destroy all their own cattle and crops.
The Xhosas were disturbed by news
of this revelation
and travelled from near and far
to speak to her
and her witchdoctor uncle Mhlakaza.
Crowds of Xhosas gathered at the pool
with its red flowering aloes
peering into the water,
with a lot claiming to see
the faces of their ancestors there.
Some people even claimed
to see whole armies of ancestors
eager for war against the white man
and only waiting on the Xhosa people
to follow their instructions.
Then the insane instructions was followed through
with cattle being slaughtered
and most of the crops being destroyed
and only the very small Ngqika
section of the tribe not adhering to it.
The majority of Xhosas
waited in vain on 18 February 1857
for the sun to rise blood red,
the land to be filled with fat cattle,
new crops to appear
and vast armies of spirits
to go out in battle
against the white man.
It was a tragic dawn
with the Xhosa nation facing starvation
and ironically the Xhosas survived only
through the white man
reacheding out a hand of friendship
and feeding them
and by the compassion
of some neighbouring tribes
who had been oppressed by them before
and it’s estimated
that some twenty five thousand people
did die from this tragedy.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
Nonqawuse
Slowly almost solemnly
the silver glare
of the bright sun
reflected on a sacred pool
where Nonqawuse stripped from all clothing
walked naked into the cool waters
bedecked with gold brought to her as gifts
shining bright on her black skin
and suddenly she saw something there
in the reflection, something apart
from the white-hot sun.
At first she thought that a huge serpent
had come to life in the glare
and glistening water,
and she was somewhat afraid
of it being a crocodile
but something else was there.
It was the faces of ancestral spirits,
of heroes long dead
and they were talking in her head
promising help in a great battle
against the white man
if her tribe, her whole nation
would kill every animal they posses
and destroy all crops
as a sign of faith
and the tale and commotion
spread like wild fire
among the Xhosa people
drawing them to gather at the pool,
to pray to their spirit gods,
to talk to the beautiful native girl
and the day came
where most of the Xhosa nation
obeyed the spirit ancestors
and killed all there stock,
burnt all their crops
and the tongue of death
spread through their land
in a terrible dawn
on that 18 February 1857 morn
while the sun rose from out of the Indian Ocean
as it always did
reflected on that holy pool
and ruination and starvation
came in the wake of this foolish act
and before the sun went down
Nonqawuse was arrested by European police,
and in obscurity lived on a farm
at King William’s Town
and the white man reached out his hand
in the Christian way
and fed them
and still that pool with its cool waters,
troubled surface and wild surroundings
in the Gxara River
surrounded by wild red aloes
remains a sign of man’s folly
and a place of great evil to some.
poem by Gert Strydom
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God of our fathers
With their eyes set on the distance
our fathers
trekked into their promised land
as children of the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
After the murders on Piet Retief and his men
our fathers made a holy covenant
with the almighty God
to rescue them in their laager at Blood River
against a very big army
of about twenty thousand Zulus.
With their victory
they did not go forth
to wipe out every single Zulu,
rather with the Bible in the hand
they wanted to teach
other people about God.
When the Xhosas slaughtered
almost all their livestock,
were burning their own harvests
believing the medium Nonqawuse
that ancestral spirits
will rise to wipe out the white man
and thousands of them
were dying from starvation
our fathers reached out their hands
and in neighbourly love gave food to those people,
doing what they could
to try and save them.
When droughts, illness of the livestock,
locusts were ravaging, even when the British Empire
came to take the mineral treasures,
were burning down farms and towns,
were murdering women and children
in concentration camps
our fathers went on their knees,
placing their destiny in the hands
of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
knowing that his shadow was falling over them,
that He keeps account
was folding His Godly hand over them
l’Envoi
and now that thousands of farmers
are being killed on their farms
are being tortured, murdered and robbed
Afrikaners with qualifications
and experience, even artisans
are unemployed on the street,
people in cities
are hijacked, robbed and raped
I am praying to the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
to keep His hand over us,
to draws His laager
around the lives and property
of everyone that comes to Him,
to free us from this oppression.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Hues of blue
From the holiday apartment’s window
I see people swimming in the blue pool
and the water looks icy cold
from the dark blue colour
Some girls and women have
bathing caps on in colours
of white, green and blue
and others swim without
while some lie
around the pool.
While the day gets hotter
the colour of the pool changes
to a lighter hue
and just across the road
the beach is full
of people lying in the sun.
Some swim with the waves
breaking white
and some are deeper
in the aquamarine water
and still deeper
some surfers
are riding the waves
the of a navy blue ocean.
poem by Gert Strydom
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You Tell Me Of Your Australian History
You tell me of your Australian history your ancestors were British and Irish pioneers
But your history in this Land is not an old history just two centuries and twenty years
And in time that may seem quite a long span though the combined life spans of three people nothing more
Your ancestors hardly were Aussies they came here from a distant shore.
The first Australians have lived in this Country for longer than most care to know
Their ancestors came here from Asia more than sixty thousand years ago
They are indigenous to this Country all others have links to elsewhere
Yet they still struggle for recognition and that to me seems quite unfair.
Dispossessed by the Northern invaders they never did get back their Land
And that they are now ruled by white people I find that hard to understand
You talk of the history of this Land as if it were only two hundred years old
But then suppose the history of the ancient Dreamtime by white people will never be told.
I was not even born in this Country which makes you more Aussie than I
And though I'm not Nationalistic or Patriotic my heritage I won''t deny
You talk of your pioneering ancestors but why talk of Human history at all
If the history of the first Australians you do not see fit to recall.
You tell me of your pioneering ancestors but one fact you tend to ignore
That they were not born in this Country they came here from a foreign shore
You''d swear by you the Human history of this Land was only two centuries old
But the true history of this great Country by your type will never be told
poem by Francis Duggan
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Egrets
Once as I travelled through a quiet evening,
I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still.
Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding;
each on its own white image looked its fill,
and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading -
thirty egrets in a quiet evening.
Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing,
your lucky eyes may light on such a pool.
As though for many years I had been waiting,
I watched in silence, till my heart was full
of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving,
and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.
poem by Judith Wright
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Those Who Are Less Fortunate Then You
Consolidation.
The gathering of a nation.
Make us one.
Make us whole.
Destroy this void.
With armies sent to destroy.
Under political control.
Creating a martial law.
Protesters are silenced with the sounds gun fire.
Lethal force has been authorized.
And blood pours and pools right under our feet.
Their is no going back.
Their is no retreat.
That flag marks the day of defeat.
Consolidation.
The gathering of a nation.
Make us one.
Make us whole.
Destroy this void.
With armies sent to destroy.
Under political control.
Consolidation.
The gathering of a nation.
Make us one.
Make us whole.
Destroy this void.
With armies sent to destroy.
Under political control.
Monsters with innocent faces.
The poison in this water has become so tasteless.
Does this mean it won't kill?
The fight for the freedom of the defenseless.
Let our crys be heard.
Let them hear us all over the world.
Consolidation.
The gathering of a nation.
Make us one.
Make us whole.
Destroy this void.
With armies sent to destroy.
Under political control.
Divide us into groups of races, religions, classes and other discrimination's.
It doesn't change that we are all made of this flesh.
With hearts that all beat the same.
We all bleed the same.
No matter the cage we're imprisoned in.
This won't change.
Consolidation.
The gathering of a nation.
Make us one.
Make us whole.
Destroy this void.
With armies sent to destroy.
Under political control.
Consolidation.
The gathering of a nation.
Make us one.
Make us whole.
Destroy this void.
With armies sent to destroy.
Under political control.
All we ask for, all we want, all we seek is the right to be as we are.
Is our very existence so wrong?
That no haven or shelter shall be given to those who less fortunate then you, then you, then you?
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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Moonlight Sestina
While reading Li Po, I fall
Asleep, and dream of the moon
My body lies on white
Cool sheets, flooded in a pool
Of moonlight. Lost in a dream
I lie in light, floating.
Like a full moon floating
On waves, I feel the fall
And rise, the tide of these dream
Currents. Closer, the moon
Approaches to my pool
Of flesh, shining me white.
From the glare of waxing white,
Gauze curtains – breeze floating -
Shield this rippling pool,
Become a waterfall,
And break the mirror moon-
Light through wet prisms, I dream.
Is this Shechinah? my dream
Self asks. At once the cold white
Chills me to ice. The moon
Swells until it's a floating
City, waiting to fall -
Atlantis – in the pool.
I yearn to be that pool
Skin, transparent as dream.
Instead I fear the moon fall:
I cannot part the white
Sea of thighs, Still floating
Whole, I cry to the moon:
“I am not ready, Moon”
Silence shimmers my pool,
But brightness fades, Floating
Away. Then from the dream
I emerge, weeping white
Tears that shine like star-fall.
Li Po's moon plunge sank dream
Deep. Whirlpool of lunar white
Drowns us; floating, we fall.
poem by Lillian Susan Thomas
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We did not own this country (in answer to Mathews Phosa)
We did not own this country
the Lord gave it to our ancestors
and when they stepped ashore here,
hordes came from eMbo out of the north
and the country also did not belong to them.
Let you see us as intruders,
you yourself are intruders,
a multitude of people out of the tribes
of Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi en Pondo
came from the big lakes under leadership
of chief Dklamini and later chief Nguni.
Our ancestors made a sacred covenant with God
to be able to survive
and still this relationship is held high
as forever God remains the same
and the people that now governs
do not represent me, are proclaiming laws
that are oppressing my Afrikaner people and me,
making me a third rate citizen
and I did not surrender this country
even less have left it
or have neglected any civil duties
and I am waiting on the salvation
coming out of the hand
of the almighty God.
[References: “Bulala Bathakathi” and “ons het ons land verlaat” (we left the country / land) by Mathews Phosa. (The poet Mathews Phosa is the premier of the Orange Free State province) ]
poem by Gert Strydom
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American Wild West: Cattle Rustlers
there was a time
in American history
when cattle rustlers
were shot or hung
stealing beef on the hoof
hot irons changing brands
fast rustled up retribution
justice from a rope hung
there was a time
in American history
when cruel range wars
were fought with guns
settlers driven off farmland
starved their crops ruined
their homes stolen burned
cattle grazed homesteaders
land cattle barons prospered
water rights grazing rights
unfenced unowned range land
farmers ranchers fought wars
frontier justice lynchings
local residents fought
gunmen hired bought
no weak law range wars
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Still Life
Dave Murray, Steve Harris
Take a look in the pool and what do you see
In the dark depths there faces beckoning me
Can't you see them it's plain for all to see
They were there oh I know you don't believe me.
Oh...I've never felt so strange
But...I'm not going insane.
I've no doubt that you think I'm off my head
You don't say but it's in your eyes instead
Hours I spend out just gazing into that pool
Something draws me there I don't know what to do.
Oh...they drain my strength away
Oh...they're asking me to stay.
Nightmares...spirits calling me
Nightmares...they won't leave me be.
All my life's blood is slowly draining away
And I feel that I'm weaker every day
Somehow I know I haven't long to go
Joining them at the bottom of the pool.
Now...I feel they are so near
I...begin to see them clear
Nightmares...coming all the time
Nightmares...Will give me peace of mind.
Now it's clear and I know what I have to do
I must take you down there to look at them too
Hand in hand then we'll jump right into the pool
Can't you see not just me they want you too.
Oh...we'll drown together
It...will be forever.
Nightmares...forever calling me
Nightmares...Now we rest in peace.
song performed by by Iron Maiden
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There’s a big painting
There’s a big painting of a girl
with a light pink skin
that lies on a white skin cloak
in front of a dark pool,
where snow white water lilies drifts
and I can see into her soul.
I have felt like taking the fan
next to her
and to wave her cool
yet she looks fragile
and self-possessed and calm,
where she lies with her peach pink dress
looking at me
and I wonder for whom she is waiting
and why the door behind her
of which the steps goes into the pool
are always locked?
[Reference: Painting of a girl at a pool by Mandi. See the painting at my webpage: http: //www.mabooki.com/poems/display/1412_There_is_a_b ig_painting.htm]
poem by Gert Strydom
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La Guerre Day
At dawn, gunfire woke everyone in Bor
The first bullet of bullets bulleted
And more bullets rained as rain rained
The blood streamed as a stream streamed
The bodies littered on roads as dung
The first martyr of martyrs martyred
The first wounded of wounded wounded
The first survivor of survivors survived
No mouths tested anything that day
The water smelled blood
The food smelled corpse
The blackest day in the history of this nation
The whitest day in the history of this nation
The saddest day in the history of this nation
The happiest day in the history of this nation
The end of slavery, the beginning of freedom
A black day for oppressors
A white day for the oppressed
A sad day for the oppressors
A happy day for the oppressed
The action of 105 Battalion on
La Guere Day – May 16th,1983
Began the beginning of Liberation, Independence, Culture and Identity not greedy indisciplinary salary demand as desert cocaine intoxicated men claimed. May 16th began the birth of SPLA Patriotic and gallant fighters whom 105 soldiers told “If it kills us, it’s called our land”.
The SPLA fighters took the word as slogan
They fought to achieve justice for all
Note on May 16 1983, the war broke between South and North in the Sudan
poem by David Aoloch Bion
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A Drover
To Meath of the pastures,
From wet hills by the sea,
Through Leitrim and Longford
Go my cattle and me.
I hear in the darkness
Their slipping and breathing.
I name them the bye-ways
They’re to pass without heeding.
Then the wet, winding roads,
Brown bogs with black water;
And my thoughts on white ships
And the King o’ Spain’s daughter.
O! farmer, strong farmer!
You can spend at the fair
But your face you must turn
To your crops and your care.
And soldiers—red soldiers!
You’ve seen many lands;
But you walk two by two,
And by captain’s commands.
O! the smell of the beasts,
The wet wind in the morn;
And the proud and hard earth
Never broken for corn;
And the crowds at the fair,
The herds loosened and blind,
Loud words and dark faces
And the wild blood behind.
(O! strong men with your best
I would strive breast to breast
I could quiet your herds
With my words, with my words.)
I will bring you, my kine,
Where there’s grass to the knee;
But you’ll think of scant croppings
Harsh with salt of the sea.
poem by Padraic Colum
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A host of people came south
According to tradition
at the beginning
of the seventeenth century
the tribes of Zulu, Xhosa,
Swazi and Pondo people
who have a related language
and similar culture
and now live in Southern Africa,
migrated from the north
from a legendary place
they call eMbo
somewhere at the great lakes
in central Africa.
As part of a large group
under command of chief Dlamini
the vanguard under chief Nguni
went ahead and discovered
the rivers and hills of Zululand
splitting away from the host
where they killed the local Bushmen hunters
and a metal working offshoot
of the Karimba tribe
and to them these other people
is nothing more than phantoms
spooking in the cliffs,
the caves and in the reeds
near to the river.
Then the followers of Nguni
divided up into different clans
search for the best valley to settle.
One of these people
was a man named Malandela
and they settled near to a river
that they called the forceful one,
building beehive huts
and on Malandela’s death
his two sons divided
the followers and possessions
between the two of them.
The younger son was named Zulu
which means heaven
and he went with his mother
and followers
to find a place of his own
near a basin in hills
at the Mkhumbane river
and his people planted
a euphorbia tree over his grave
and from then on referred to it
as the place of the great chief
and all the earlier chiefs
except Shaka are buried
in that valley.
Believing that their spirits
and that of Shaka haunts this place
the Zulu army before battle
went to this valley
to pray at ancestral graves
and thundering out the salute:
“Because of us, war.”
poem by Gert Strydom
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Cherokee
White solemn smoke from distant hearths rising,
Cherokee spirit of his ancestors in a white vastness,
a spotted appaloosa, chestnut-white, vapor-snorting
the snow is abundant, and the game scarce or less.
All platitudes by wise-tribes-men appear visceral,
but within he feels it.. Icy plains with an outrageous,
erasing of buffalo tracks, strange to signs conferral,
oppose of his elders sacrifices and Great Spirit's vows.
Each tree in this forest, contains an ancestor's
killed warrior's soul, inside to abide; And the souls
gathered amid, constitute a great entity to endorse,
make a continuum to accept his tribe's prayer-calls.
A brave, Long Warrior of Tanasi, a vigil for his kin,
Impertinent oracles, about altered times advent,
and a demise of a numinous endorsement to win,
mal-spirits in a cadavers dance, a warrior's abetment.
White vapor exhaling, his diligent's bred nostrils,
buffalo game in his Nation's land became scarce,
To know, and to predict is an odd afforcement,
as unexplained all signs are, threats hover to coerce.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Black And White! (Spirits And Flesh)
black and white,
not different kinds of souls,
merely skin tints!
Americans, and Middle
Eastern people,
worship...
not different gods,
but different understandings
of the same god!
and common people,
all around the world,
have worked too long,
for too little,
are tired of being numbers,
numbers without faces!
tired on being enslaved,
being treated as possessions....
for they have faces!
faces with hearts,
hearts with spirits,
spirits made of flesh!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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As Previously Advantaged, Now Disadvantaged
we are humbly sorry that our ancestors
sailed with ships from Europe
to discover other continents,
putting their intelligence and advanced
technology into good practice,
discovering the Cape of Good Hope
and developing this country
to the best of their ability and knowledge
while your ancestors migrated from the big lakes
in central Africa, under chief Dlamini
from eMbo killing the other local inhabitants
as far as they were going,
even wiping them out after they had settled.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
took you from the bush, tried to teach you
Christian values and a Christian religion,
instead of worshiping to ancestral spirits,
dead stones of which you believe the silence
have greater meaning and more depth
than any other teachings,
tried to teach you to earn a living
by planting crops, maintaining and herding cattle
instead of pillaging, robbing and killing others,
instead of trapping, killing animals,
with sticks, stones and iron spears.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
took the wild bush as pioneers
planned and developed
farms, towns and cities, mines, factories,
the infrastructure that are in them,
developed water resources,
electrical powering and laid railway lines,
developed the roads,
the harbors and airports that link them
to each other and the rest of the wide world,
which you now view as belonging to you,
to at your discretion take over by force
from the people to whom they did belong,
to rob, kill and pillage property
to rename airports, harbors, streets,
towns and cities at your own discretion.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
after fighting victoriously against yours
at Blood River and in other wars and battles
respected you as people living in this country,
did not like the Americans and Australians
go out to wipe you out of the country,
administered medicine when your ancestors
where dying form plagues and devastating
spreading illnesses like measles and influenza,
that they fed your ancestors
to try and save a whole nation
when your ancestors destroyed their own crops,
killed all their own cattle at the insistence
of the witch medium Nonqawuse.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
tried to teach you to only have as many children
in families, as you can support as parents,
not to breed as many as is possible
to prevent dwelling in shacks, impoverishment,
diseases like cholera spread by urinating and defecating
in drinking water.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors,
and the terrible Apartheid government
tried to provide you with schools
where you urinated in cans in public,
where you broke all the windows,
where you broke tables, chairs and black boards
which you burnt down to the ground,
preventing yourselves
to get a proper education, where a whole
generation of your youth decided
on first getting liberation and later education
and are not literate at all.
We were happy to have learned discipline,
Christian values, languages, mathematics,
science, geography and any other subjects
and having received canings, for being disobedient,
for doing things wrong, for not studying
and now really prefer the teacher’s union riots at schools,
especially schools where those unions do not belong,
we prefer the wanton destruction of school property,
the chaos in which teachers have got to instruct,
the new curriculum based on human rights,
the spreading of lawlessness among children,
the drawing of swords, knives and guns,
even pairs of scissors to settle issues
the disrespect, the chaos, the pregnancies
of school children, the disowning of religion
at schools, the disowning of culture, language
and well-taught values.
We are humbly sorry that we are experiencing
a secret war in which you are wiping out our families
one by one, in which thousands of white people
have already perished,
we are humbly sorry that we hear the current government
is singing inciting songs, that advises their followers
to kill us, to shoot us,
we are humbly sorry
that the robberies, affirmative action, raping,
torture and murder of our friends
and our family members
prevents us from not being bitter,
proof to us your inhumanity,
that you are secretly hiding behind
the ancient rights of pillage,
that you are openly hiding
behind human rights,
while smiling in pleasure.
We have all the reason in the world
to trust the new government
as none of its members
were previously involved in bombings,
terrorist attacks in churches,
murders, setting alive people on fire,
corruption or other financial irregularities.
We are humbly sorry that we have no trust
in the South African Police Service,
or any of its officers,
who walk us out of the way with sub-machineguns,
in shopping malls,
who search us and take our cellular phones
when we receive calls at public roadblocks,
who do not find our stolen property,
or our stolen cars,
who admit quite openly
that they are inadequate to fight crime
and have lost that fight,
while they just carrying on
as if they are really interested in doing their duty,
who do not control rioters
damaging innocent individuals or property,
who do not have a vehicle available
in a real emergency,
but arrive with five vehicles
when there’s a family incident
or where a child falsely
accuses the parent of sexual battery.
We are humbly sorry that the members
of our national teams
are not selected on merit,
but on color,
that winning and patriotism is not important,
to the citizens of this country
or to the sponsors who pay the bills.
We are humbly sorry that jobs
are not determined on merit,
education, experience but by
affirmative action, that you
have flung the borders open wide
to citizens of all countries in Africa,
illegal immigrants from all
of the African countries
which are huge economic powerhouses,
are streaming here in a new migration
after kicking out the white settlers,
are becoming citizens over night.
We are humbly sorry that
that universities, hospitals, water cleaning facilities,
roads, railroads and electricity supplying facilities
are going slowly but surely into ruination
as you are preventing skilled white persons
from running these facilities,
have driven a lot away to work
in foreign countries
where there skills are really needed.
We are humbly sorry that we
do not believe in ancestral spirits,
any kind of witchcraft, urinating on trees,
on buildings, at street corners,
spitting anywhere, slaughtering live
cattle and bulls for sacrifices
in our back yards
or on our properties in town,
virginity testing, circumcision,
cures from seawater, beetroot or garlic
and any other barbaric practices
like trading for or buying
the woman that you want to marry.
This clearly state that we
come from quite another world,
than yours and that our world
which is in the whole
of the civilized western society
is inadequate against yours,
that we are truly sorry that we are not up
to being indoctrinated into your
primitive culture, way of life,
life expectancy, values and religion,
that this country will never
rise to its full potential.
I as a poet am truly sorry
that this might be the last poem
that I publish against the current government,
as from tomorrow freedom of speech may be gone
and I might be arrested for these words,
as any government that suppresses human rights,
have things to hide from its own citizens
and from the wide world.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Storm In A Tea Cup
That Art’s Council tea-room in there.
It has got sandwiches for ten dollars!
And fancy cups of foreign coffee for five!
Dressing up cheap common food to put on airs!
Dats lots a Pakeha swilling din dere.
Da got ta play tat mana man sittin ere.
Ant no brows faces in dat sea-oh-white.
Maori no spill de money cept pay night.
Nor are my mates crowding among rich clowns.
We sup service where frugality wears a crown.
Money paid where sobriety is precisely value set.
Value guaranteed in balance procured service let.
Dat bad man. Dat bad man. Dat bad man.
E took dat. E took dat. E took dat.
For de fire water. For de musket. For de glass bead.
For de blanket. Eee sold it. Eee sold it. Eee sold it.
So what were the injustices of the real Land Wars?
Scots cast off land their ancestors bleed crops grew.
Houses flattened homeless refugees no pity given knew?
English Lords were never fair or kind? Too dispossessed you?
Cast out like sheep. Fatherless families. London’s gutters flock.
So new pastures new lords. Filled with sheep in swarming stock.
Scots men. British armies greedily recruited. Grabbed their lot.
Irish up front in genocide queue. A potato failure famine!
Not a lack of food! English ate all else as rated rent!
Eight million Irish and only one million starvation spent?
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The white men told lies for each other. They drove off a great many of our cattle. Some branded our young cattle so they could claim them.
quote by Chief Joseph
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cool Water
Words and music by bob nolan
Revised lyrics by joni mitchell
All day I face the barren waste
Without a taste of water
Cool water
Old dan and i
Our throats slate dry
Our spirits cry out for water
Cool clear water
Keep on movin dan
Some devils had a plan
Buried poison in the sand
Dont drink it man
Its in the water
Cool clear water
In my mind I see
A big green tree
And a river flowin free
Waitin up ahead
For you and me
Cool clear water
The nights are cool and Im a fool
Each star is a pool of water
Cool water
But come the dawn
We carry on
We wont last long without water
Cool clear water
Keep on movin dan
Were still in no-mans land
Dry bones and sand
People never planned here for water
Cool clear water
In my mind I see
A big green tree
And a river flowin free
Waiting up ahead for you and me
Cool clear water
The shadows sway
They seem to say
Tonight we pray for water
Cool water
And way up there
If you care
Please show us where
Theres good water
Cool clear water
song performed by by Joni Mitchell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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