Once in China

Once I saw in China a cool clear mountaintop

With air as clear as saintly tears, as pure as virgin blush

Where mornings brisk, day’s warming kiss, leads evenings hasty dusk

While nighttime skies, a million eyes, weave tales and stories aloft

There were fish in the waters of clear crystal blue

Pine on the hills, scented saps, dripping dew

The mosses were wet, deep green and obese

Fingers pushing down, clear rivers springing out

Yes, such a place I spied that day when reaching furthest peak

When through the veil of lifting haze the forests gave their way

For there beyond those tall twin tops, lay verdant, firm and fixed

The land of Eve, where she conceived and all our futures lost

Yet still a place of beauties peace and innocence of breast

A place with naught but happiness, for wanderers and the lost

Where misty fogs of honeydew, with clouds of sweet, spiced tea

Does lace the breeze in future scents, of travelers on the wing

Oh my God of such a place such men have yearned and fought

Heroes, kings, knights and fools, all died to pay the cost

To have and hold but one sparse piece of heavens restful lot 

Yet I of all then stood and saw what Eden once was like

The air that day was neither cool, nor heat was ever hot

Nor was the food err not enough nor sweets but never not

Then it was I fell in love, on shadowed mountainside

By brook and glen, at rivers edge, swift waters falling spent

Hearts do tumble slower, when rushing down a hill

As lives loom a bit larger, when forced against their will

Yet we both lie coiled in exhaustion at the end of each new day

The old end fatigued, the new one… tired from all it’s play

There on my knees, waters falling all round

I held out my hand, took hers in my palm

Yes was her answer, still is to this day

Oh China my China, still so far away

An old man embraced me, in shadow and shade

His wife she just smiled, mumbled and waived

Some sat beside me, to see if for real

A white man from Meagu could so love a hill

I saw once in China, a cool mountaintop

A place I was happy, my wandering stopped

(C)2011 Tim Wilkinson & Wayne Wilks