This poem (song) was inspired by watching a DVD of the great BC folk group: Tillers Folly. I need someone to write the music for it.

How Can It Be?

Chorus:
I sit here and ask myself
How can it be
How can it be
We’re the same kind of animal
The same one are we
The stony-eyed soldier who kills without pain
And the fiddler who pumps out a heavenly refrain.

The man we know has taken shape
Over the eons he rose from ape.
Whose tongue, whose palate, song has reached
Whose spine is large enough for speech
Five fingers to find and tame the strings
To coax from them the thrill it brings
Whose lungs expand with silken voice
That gladdens hearts, makes us rejoice
Can soar to the moon on a single bar
Till we lose track of where we are.

Can this be the species, one and same
That takes delight to kill and maim
Who strikes down parents as children look on
Who severs families ever gone.
Casts a blind eye on him below
Lets senseless bombs fall where they go.
Can probe the depths of the universe
And link every person on this earth
Can look inside the smallest of small
Then use its power to kill us all.

I don’t understand, I never will
For it’s an enigma beyond my skill
How man can master art and beauty
Yet follow mindless call of duty.
We are unique in all of life:
To swing from the sublime to strife.
Fear of death and nothing after.
Invention, science, love and laughter.
While I wait for the answer to come along
I’ll drift away on the wings of song.

Copyright Karen Reid 2007