Heart Remains

the world gets fast and the tempo skips
the mind plays tricks when the sunlight hits me
i get a memory flash like a frisbee
thrown from a thousand long miles away
thoughts go deep but underneath
the ground that used to be beneath me
there's a restless need to indulge the senses
just to see what the mind remembers
dive in, swim through the maze
hold your breath and let go of the reins
caught in the rift and the current below
mind got movement, mind got flow
from where i stand the vision expands
over the red sand, over the land
over the city and the bush and beyond
mind gallop over countless kilometres
to the place of the oldest origins
where the silent sleeping sorrow is
the thriving creeping metropolis
with a heart that was heavy as the wallaby's
in a colony that paints the dreams
with the glinted light of the harboured seas
the flame trees and amongst the weeds
the greenest greens and the rainforest valleys
the undergrowth, solar flares
sunsets spread through the sky like prayers
the rarest flowers cover the ground
illegal crops support the small towns
house on stilts in a cane field
an old windmill with a chain wheel
insects hum in the afternoon
like a thousand drummers in a tiny room
there's a silver moon that'll rise tonight
shine the light along the countryside
beaches give way to rolling pastures
wheat and barley wait for harvest
fibre houses, peeling paint
an old hill's voice and a rusty gate
a garden path, a big backyard
and a clapped out tire in the front
and the languid heat makes sleepless nights
lazy sleep, mosquito bites
old timers who drive the road trains
rolling cigarettes single handed
outback pubs in the blazing sun
fried up grub in the empty drums
twelve apostles, hungry possums
empty bottles, ancient fossils
friendly blokes, racist jokes
and everywhere you look there it goes
lightning flash, thunder crack
rain come down and the sky turned black
and the fishing trawlers in majestic waters
blistering winds on a shipwrecked shore
neptune's wrath for the legible
you're gonna pay for the fish that your fathers took
families fear for the worst in storms
but some folk weren't meant to live indoors
and the horses run, eagles soar
the carseat's hot, and the breeze is warm
drive the cast out, follow the signs
on highways carved into lonely coastlines
move forward, sing the praise
drive the days to watch climates change
it's highly likely we'll sleep in the backseat
with a rolled up pillow and a bed sheet
and we drive with a mess on the windscreen
and the bugs turn pasty at this speed
and the road runs straight all the way to the west
where the sea gets down with the sunset
roadkill flesh, service stations
drive with the bears and the birds outcast
salt-pan legs, calm and vast
colours explode under skies of glass
snakes and lizards, red blood ribbons
buried in the dust and the walk and the grass
and the stars in the milky way transform
the night in the darkened frame
distant suns and constellations
shooting stars and the skies blazing

and the gods they must be crazy
and the gods they must be crazy
and the gods they must be crazy
and the gods they must be crazy

we are all spangled off on shifting fortunes channelling long dead spirits
cling to the coast like ghosts
and sunday roasts and english hopes giving way
tied to an island and the tyranny of distance
and the hearth and the golden persistence
and it's hard to say
what we'd like to say while matilda haunts us the night away
through the blood and the sweat and the tears and the laughter
the sun and the rain and the thunder
and the creeks and the rivers and the reefs and the valleys and the fields and the beach
i saw it all clear from a house on a hill in a country far away
and i thought to myself till the day that i die
"that'll be where my heart remains"