Then Came the Children

Come gather all around me friends
I'll tell to you about the minstrel band
Of children in their witches hats
And painting pictures with the pipes of pan

The young boy and his sister played
Some tunes upon a whistle made of tin
And led me through the flower gardens
Laughing at the postman's stubby chin

In my dizzy stupor I was trying
Hard to forfeit all I'd known
And listen to this music that could
Swirl me in a magic all their own

Somewhere in the distance you and I
Had fought the monster to a draw
In those days of books and wine
With Ferlinghetti grasping for a straw

Out along the highways we had
Journeyed far to find the mystic smile
With chasing down identities, my God
We must have run a million miles

Oh we can teach them nothing, nothing
But survival in a desert bare
But they can teach us how to love
And live and tie bright ribbons in our hair

Oh sing for us you children, tinkle bells
And rhyme the purple green and blue
And think of us as fighting fools
Who wintered through the seasons loving you

Oh we can teach them nothing, nothing
But survival in a desert bare
But they can teach us how to love
And live and tie bright ribbons in our hair