Gone to the Hillside

He sat there on the hillside, his face all caked in white.
He said, "darling, what's that weighing on your mind on such a night?"
I turned to him to whisper, "my spirit isn't strong"
but when I turned around, the wise old man was gone.

So I walked along that hillside, my eyes all laced in tears
wondering what had happened, how I'd lost the fondest years.
When the old man came beside me and laid his hand in mine
he said, "don't be so down, my love, because one day you will find
the place with no horizon,
a sky that never ends,
the place where golden silence
is the only thing that mends.
Although you may be broken,
may your wounded heart stay strong
because one day you will find
the place where pain is gone."

Departing with a whisper, that wise man faded down
and the silence in the shadows was all that was around.
So I continued down the hillside, listening to the rain
wondering where this place was, the place that cures the pain.

And I came upon a river with mirrors in the sand
I looked down and saw what I once thought was that old, wise, strengthened man.
His pale complexion looked back at me, his eyes so learned and worn
and his lips motioned the caring words I had heard a time before.

He said "someday you will find yourself, the you you used to love
and someday you will find the place that falls from up above.
And that someday when you know yourself, is the someday that you'll see
that all the times of loneliness were occupied by me.

Now confusion set in in as I slowly walked away
perplexed by the enthralling things that old man had to say.
As I followed the river to the end of the road,
I whispered in silence at what was beginning to unfold.

I saw that old man at the end of the street, walking slowly and shuffling his feet.
When I called the old man he just stopped and he smiled
he said, "there you are. You've been lost for a while"

I said, "what do you mean? I've been here all along."
He said, "in body you have, but in mind you've been gone."
Gone to the place filled with laughter and grins,
gone to the place where the healing begins.
Gone to the place where love lasts forever,
gone to the place where each day is better.

I have seen your distant future intertwined within your past
and I know what lies within you, I know that strength will last."
So I smiled at the beauty of what my sad eyes couldn't see
and I smiled at the thought that the wise old man was me