VEGANGELICA

Hello again, MB people,

I realize I have gotten a little diverted from my initial strident and obvious vegan songs and have been posting more lyrics about human relationships. Nevertheless, I've decided to post the lyrics for yet another song that isn't obviously vegan, called "Return." I think my next song will be about wool, though!

I started "Return" in January of 2010 and worked on it off and on last year, probably finishing it around the same time as the last lyrics I posted since the formats are similar. The lyrics have an awful lot of "to's" and "haves" in them, but, ah well, nothing's perfect.

"Return" is about the degree to which free will is involved when you love someone. While writing the song, I was thinking of one of my favorite lines in poetry: "I half turn to go, yet turning stay." from Christina Rossetti's poem, "Remember." Remember, by Christina Rossetti

I also was inspired by the saying, "If you love someone, set her free. If she comes back, she's yours. If she doesn't, she never was.... " I feel that is good advice, since it helps me make peace with what people I care about do and it reminds me not to try to bind them down. I also feel this saying is good advice for how people should treat non-human animals. If people really cared for and loved animals, they wouldn't raise or hunt them to kill them. I found out I'm not the only person who has thought this:

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"Return" by Erica

The young tree we planted is growing older,
the leaves turning brilliant
when days turn colder,
just like we planned,
dirt on our hands years ago.

The autumn of a life arrives so fast.
I never thought I'd be alone.
Thought we would last,
just like we planned,
hoping we'd command
the future's flow.

Yet while I had no choice but to love you,
you had no choice but to go
when you had to,
and as I turn back the clock,
I wonder how you're doing now,

because I have no choice but to love you,
who had no choice but to be
whom you had to.
Still I wonder, wonder
what we'd be doing now.

I watch the chilly breeze
sway branches of our tree,
the robins' hollow nest now empty,
though they'll return
when once again they yearn
in spring to come home.

If you had stayed
you would have seen them
and their fragile eggs,
each like a blue gem,
from which each year hatchlings appear,
their broken shells below.

I know I'm lucky,
yes, I'm lucky to be healthy and alive,
but I thought I'd have my feelings all in order,
now that time is running down
and getting shorter,
yet every day, every day
I'm still saying goodbye

when I turn back the clock
and you're turning back to me,
in your eyes I know I see apology.
I could have kept you with a word,
but I say, shhh, go,

because I had no choice but to love you,
who had no choice but to be
whom you had to.
Still I wonder, wonder
what we'd be doing now

if when I had no choice but to love you,
you'd had no choice but to know
you never wanted to
have to turn back the clock
to be with me now,

like I turn back the clock,
I turn back the clock
in my mind
I turn back the clock
to be with you now.

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