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Sung beautifully at a L’Arche Black Rock community gathering… I come thinking: “what might I have to give this community?” and instead receive abundantly. What do the sights, smells and touch of the flowers and leaves have to tell us? It could have been a Credo gathering and I’m heart-glad there’s this and other shade tree places yet to discover… do you need a shade tree place? Do you need a place to go? You are welcome here.

I need a place, a shade tree place
I need a place a new cool waterhole
I need a place, a shade tree place
A sanctuary for my very soul
I need a place where I can go

I need a place, a shade tree place
I need a place where the swallows swoop low
I need a place, a shade tree place
Today is seems such a long way,
Way down the road
I need a place where I can go

Something there, inside of me,
is trying to wake me up
Something there, is shaking my shoulders to see
The rocks and the tree and the centipede

Land, O  land, you keep calling to me,
Come and sit with me a while
Land, O land, you keep calling to me,
To rest in the grace with the lorikeet

I need a place, a shade tree place
I need a place a new cool waterhole
I need a place, a shade tree place
I need a place where the swallows swoop low
I need a place where I can go
I need a place where I can go
I need a place where I can go

 

From “A Sanctuary of Soul” – A writing collaboration between two Australian artists – songwriter John Coleman and poet Noel Davis. They met in Alice Springs in 2013 where many of the works were written. It explores themes of the Australian bush/desert, silence and the vulnerability and surprising fruits of meditation.