Fragile

Mr Andy flan wrote this song not long after the tsunami in asia. Just a few months before he was working on an island, living alongside the people, helping, playing with the children. After, nearly all of the people he had met were dead, and the village destroyed....

Why does life have to be this fragile?
Why is there a death so close to birth?
Why does life have to be this fragile?
Here on earth.

The same waves that brought you crashing in with joy
Are the same waves that leave your universe destroyed
And the same sand that once warmed this white man’s toes
Makes graves for your silent flesh and bone.

Smiles that I will not forget
Joy that left me in your debt

Why does life have to be this fragile?
Why is there a death so close to birth?
Why does life have to be this fragile?
Here on earth.


The same air that once filled your life with breath
Same air brings the choking stench of death
Same nets that put food upon your plate
Lie cast like the die that sealed your fate

Reason here has lost its rhyme
And words feel empty at this time

Why does life have to be this fragile?
Why is there a death so close to birth?
Why does life have to be this fragile?
Here on earth.

The same man that the winds and waves obeyed,
Is the same man who was the first one to know pain
Same man could keep control of everything
Same man knows more than me about suffering

So calm this overwhelming force
As earth and heaven seem divorced.

But why does life have to be this fragile?
Why is there a death so close to birth?
Why does life have to be this fragile?
Here on earth.


©Andy Flannagan 2005