The Wood And The Trees

music and lyrics copyright (C) 1985 by Ernest B. Clark

!lj first draft 7/4/85
!lj current draft 7/25/85

       C                         F             C
When I think of my childhood the first thing I see
               G7          F           C
Is my Daddy at work on his own special tree.
                                 F           C
We would go to the wood our clan kept on its land,
         Am              G             F           C
He would work, then he'd play there to get to know me.
    F       G7             C
And oh, the plans he would tell then to me
   Am                      F           G
He had for the wood of his well-tended tree,
       F            G              C      Am7    Am
Make a neat rocking chair, carve a flute, settle there,
  F              G          C
Retired from the worries of war.

          F            G                C
    And I wish I could walk through the forest
         F         G              C
    As I did in my childhood gone by.
              F                G          C       Am7 Am
    Where the trees, hills and stones cry deep to my  bones
            F             G       C
    This is Clan Freckson land on Dorsai!


But my Daddy would always go back to the stars,
For the money to keep our clan and our world free.
And the men of our clan all sold service to fight,
And on leave each man tended his own special tree.
When one of my uncles retired one day
His tree was chopped down with its role now to play:
Some went for the peg, some the crutch for his leg,
And he whittles the rest now away.
    CHORUS.


And I say now farewell to the hills of my birth,
For a contract on Harmony waits now for me
As the duties of manhood I now freely don,
And I have my own sapling now by Daddy's tree.
But his tree is safe now, it has no more fears,
For a Cetan spring-rifle shot Dad 'tween the ears,
And the Clan Freckson tree of such men we leave be,
(How the forest has grown o'er the years!)
   CHORUS.