Lyrics & Music: Coenie de Villiers © 2016 SAMRO
There’s a faded rug upon the floor
And a painting in a frame:
It’s the one you did of Tuscany
The year before I came;
There’s a box of stars upon the shelf
From a Christmas long ago
And photographs of people,
And of places I don’t know
We have endless Tuesday mornings
Filled with cups of milky tea
Talking softly of what might have been;
how to love when you are free
Your shelf is stacked with candles,
filled with Yeats and Kerouac
and a hundred borrowed paperbacks
that you really should give back
The uniform invites the war
The lighthouse calls the storm
Be quiet: perhaps if no-one knows
We might be safe, and warm;
Turn the pictures to the wall
Close the shutters in the hall
If there is no story, if there is no past
This love might even last …
You told me without irony
That in a forest on the hill
There lives a lonely unicorn,
That you can see him still
when the light falls at an angle,
when the stars are not too bright –
when I suspend my disbelief
and the moon reflects just right
Will this dervish of desire
Burn with a cooler flame?
Do the embers ever turn to ash,
does this fire have a name?
While floating in the furnace,
as we catch the eye of God;
I wonder, would He disapprove,
would He simply smile, and nod?
The uniform invites the war
The lighthouse calls the storm
Be quiet: perhaps if no-one knows
We might be safe, and warm;
Turn the pictures to the wall
Close the shutters in the hall
If there is no story, if there is no past
This love might even last …
When eventually the clouds burn off,
when at last the weather clears;
When we can name the demons,
when we can face the fears;
We’ll ignore the footsteps on the stairs
that pause outside our door;
We’ll take a walk, and talk and laugh
At the fear we knew before
The uniform invites the war
The lighthouse calls the storm
Be quiet: perhaps if no-one knows
We might be safe, and warm;
Turn the pictures to the wall
Close the shutters in the hall
If there is no story, if there is no past
This love might even last …