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.