First we drifted then we swam
Crawled and walked and rode and ran
The birds flew but never man
Before the sky grew dark
Silence hung from tree to sky
A vastness and a burning high
Beyond the reach of human eye
Before the sky grew dark
We wrote in caves our dreams within
We wrote on bark and reed and skin
We wrote our wisdom and our sin
Before the sky grew dark
No-one dreamt we'd scrawl our trace
Upon the heavens in our haste
And chalk our greed upon God's face
Before the sky grew dark
Yet I saw the sky as the sky should be
A perfect blue infinity
A raging mountain gave to me
And how the sky grew bright
Such a blue I'd never seen
And silence deep and sunlight keen
Horizon to horizon clean
And how the sky grew bright
The memory within me burns
Though mountain sleeps and planes return
But I will work and fight and yearn
Until the sky grows bright
I have to say Kate wrote the line "I saw the sky as the sky should be" which sparked off the poem, and the line "Silence hung from tree to sky" is borrowed from a folksong called The Famous Flower of Serving Men.
