The Green Hills of Dawn
Written by Paul Hall in Paris in 1980. (c) 1987
It's about the nine months I spent in the highlands of Northern Scotland, in a mountainous region called Ducgarret, in Black Fold, just over a ridge from Lock Ness. It was in the solitude of the small croft that, as far as I can remember, I really began to write poetry that would be put to music. It was there in the incessant wind that I began to realize that I could, as it were, get the song, there in the high country where the neon lights of Inverness could be seen gleaming in the distance at night under the dancing Aurora Borealis.
In reality it wasn't just little Inverness, but all the cities I was to visit in my travels that this lament is about. Cities like Paris, Jakarta, San Francisco, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, New York, Suva, Philadelphia, Huelva, Marseilles and many others besides where I brought something back from the windy highlands that had reality; not contrived; not made up. I sang the song in the form of many songs on the street, in subways, fairgrounds, underground passageways and so on, but all were too busy to listen. Well, not all. Some listened. A few. But to no avail.
Aggregates of persons in the millions all seemingly kept from some higher calling somewhere beyond the confines of those low-level security prisons, the "cities".
The green hills of dawn
have the rainbows passing on.
Passing in the golden haze
as the sheep would graze
beyond.
I stood there
on a glowing hill
wondering when the
world would end.
When I knew
that I had
my song,
I had to leave
my friend
and go unto
the Low Lands
where the people team
and the neon lights
in the distance gleam.
It's a concrete prison
where the people go
to escape
the rain and snow.
And I went there
to sing to them
my song
from the glowing hills
by the rainbows' bend.
Sing them my song
written by my friend
the wind.
The wind got so strong
on those glowing hills
it would speak
through the speckled frays
of the heather
and kiss
the mountainsides
where the flocks
of sheep would graze.
I listened to the song,
but then,
one fine day,
in the distance
he showed me
that city down there
and said
"Son, you've got to
go away.
And go unto
the low lands
where the people team
and the neon lights
in the distance gleam.
It's a concrete prison
where the people go
to escape
the rain and snow."
So I went there
to sing to them
my song
from the glowing hills
where the rainbows bend.
Sing them my song
written by my friend
the wind.
For the sunlight
would mix
with the rain drops
and make pretty
rainbow curls,
where the aurora borealis flows
in glowing nightly swirls.
And the colored stars
would twinkle
in infinity beyond
the heather
of the highlands
where the hills
would glow at dawn.
Above the low lands
where the people team
and the neon lights
in the distance gleam.
It's a concrete prison
where the people go
to escape
the rain and snow."
So I went there
to sing to them
my song
from the glowing hills
by the rainbow's bend.
But no one would listen.
I think I'll go and sing
to the wind.
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Paul A. L. Hall
Copyright © 2003 [Paul Hall]. All rights reserved.
email: poetry@paulhallart.com