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.