Aurora Borealis

written by: Bill Fries and Chip Davis

One night last summer we were
Camped at ten thousand feet up where the air is clear
High in the Rockies of Lost Lake, Colorado;
And as the fire burned low
And only a few glowing coals remained,
We laid on our backs
All warm in our sleeping bags
And looked up at the stars…
And as I felt myself falling into
The vastness of the universe,
I thought about things…and places…
And times…

I thought about the time my grandma
Told me what to say when I
Saw the evening star…you know…
“Star light…star bright
First star I see tonight
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight…”

The air is crystal clean up here –
That’s why you can see a million stars.
I remember a time a bunch of us
Were in a canyon of the Green River in Wyoming -
It was a night just like this…
And we had our rafts pulled up on the bank
An’ turned over, so we could sleep on ‘em.
And one of the guys from New York
Said, “Hey! Look at the smog in the sky!
Smog clear out here in the sticks!”
And somebody said…”Hey Joe, that’s not smog…
That’s the Milky Way…”
Joe had never seen the Milky Way…

And we saw the northern lights once,
In the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana…
They’re like flames
From some pre-historic campfire
Leaping and dancing in the sky
And changing colors…
Red to gold…
And blue to violet…Aurora Borealis!
It’s lik the equinox…
The changing seasons…
Summer to fall…
Young to old…
Then to now
And then tomorrow…

And then everyone was asleep
Except me…
And as I saw the morning star
Come up over the mountains,
I realized that life is just a collection
Of memories…
And memories are like starlight…
They go on forever.

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Copyright 1976 American Gramophone (SESAC)
Written by Bill Fries and Chip Davis
From: C. W. McCall’s Greatest Hits
Available at: www.amazon.com