Meadowlark Grove

he walks in a shady grove...

lay him down 'neath a summer sky

watching dragons and castles move...

changing shape right before his eyes

he sees them fly...

...

seems so log since he was a child...

everything seemed s simple then...

he could latch right onto a cloud...

ride the waves of the restless wind...

... to be a child again!...

...

he's so far from the kiss of his mother now

he's taken, and broken a over's vow

he feels like a bird with a broken wing...

his life is stitched together with guitar strings...

... and other things...

...

there's a meadowlark sitting there on the fence

he's well fed, and he's singing sweet;

to him. life always makes sense...

he's never been beat, out on the street... 

...feeling incomplete...

...

he's never taken, or broken a lover's vow...

or done a little more than the law allows...

ventured too far in a realm of sin...

had to make peace with his soul... to sing again...

he's as free as the wind!

...

he walks in a shady grove... lay him down 'neath a summer sky...

watching castles and dragons move...

changing shape right before his eyes... see them fly...

...walking in a shady grove... lay him down...

...walking in a shady grove...

    ...well... this may be one of the last lyrics from the 1990 'O'Toole and Friends/Live at Artspace' recording; originally released on cassette (yes, cassettes and .45 rpm records were still the method of delivery for me at the time)... I often suggest that I co-wrote this poem with my father; but more likely he was close at hand when it came together. 'W.G.' lived out his years in a little house behind a not much bigger house where we lived in a rather 'communal' setting. My young man and my old man and myself were an adventurous trio for a number of years; and those memories sustain me now that they are both gone on. This song is my 'Sugar Mountain', I guess.

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