mdlbear | New song (Reply)

This is the song I posted a fragment of in mdlbear | Bits from three works in progress. It's finished now; the title has been changed from "Wherever" to Windward.

Windward

Lyrics © 2015 Steve Savitzky;
ttto: ``Where the Heart Is'' by Naomi Rivkis and Callie Hills

My grandmother came from Odessa
Left on the wings of a wild winter storm.
She swam the Atlantic in winter
To a place where her eggs would be sheltered and warm.

She pushed through the crowd at the beachhead to lay them
Crawled back to sea with a satisfied smile;
She said as she swam through the warm Caribbean,
"Now this is my home now, well at least for a while."

    And she told her new friends with a laugh in her eyes,
    Said, "I followed my heart, and the heart never lies.
    And where the wind takes me no turtle can tell,
    But I'm always at home in the seas where I dwell,
    Because home is wherever I carry my shell."

I was born within sight of Manhattan,
Knew the scent of the Hudson too deeply to speak
You swam Puget Sound with the salmon
And I loved you before I had known you a week.


I'd swum round Cape Horn on my way to Alaska
We met off Vancouver as I paddled through;
You smiled as you showed me your islands and beaches
But your eyes held the question Grandmother's friends knew.

    But I said, "I love travel as much as your eyes,
    So I'll follow my heart and the heart never lies.
    And where the wind takes me no turtle can tell,
    But I'm always at home in the seas where I dwell,
    Because home is wherever I carry my shell."

The water kept rising unnoticed,
A little bit warmer and wilder each year
Came a time when we couldn't deny it:
That the beach we called home would too soon disappear.

So we'll spend a few decades and visit our children,
They're swimming the seas from New Zealand to Nome.
We will leave with the tide, let the waves take us windward,
But whereever we wander we'll always be home.

    And I can't speak illusions, the pain to disguise
    But we've brought our hearts here and the heart never lies.
    Where the wind takes us next year no turtle can tell,
    But we'll still be at home come high water or hell,
    Because home is wherever you carry your shell."