HAND ON HEART

After passion, and in child-safe sleep,

After stories round the fire at night,

In joy and in sorrow, love and leaving,

I placed my hand upon your heart.

Barefoot on the desert hills of your ancestral home,

Remember, in your spirit calling,

That in the drumming and the dancing,

I placed my hand upon your heart.

In city sobriety, even the concert hall,

With its formality and restraint, there is no hiding.

I, Love, will find an outlet, for even there,

I placed my hand upon your heart.

On your dark and fish-full river,

On the big boat’s upstream passage, lianas

Trailing memories of older journeys, remember

That I have placed my hand upon your heart.

In wise-eyed sleep and watchful death,

In the living and the telling,

In singer and song, dancer and drum,

You will all recall Love, and the day

You placed my hand upon your heart.