Tropic Moon

Bruce Cockburn

Away from the river
Away from the smoke of the burning
Fearful survivors
Subject of government directives
One sad guitar note
Echoes of the wall of the jungle
Seen from the air they're just targets with nowhere to run to

Children of rape
Raised on malnutrition
Men in camouflage
Filled with a sense of mission
And the light through the wire mesh
Plays on the president's pistol
Like the gleam of a bead of sweat in the flow of a candle
Hear the cry in the tropic night
Should be the cry of love but it's a cry of fright
Some people never see the light
'Til it shines through bullet holes
'Til it shines through bullet holes

The tropic moon
Bathing a beach fringed with palms
Glitters on shells
And beach tar and coke cans
And on the night-coloured boat
And on the barrels of guns
In the rage in the hearts of these men is the seed of a wind they call kingdom
Come

Hear the cry in the tropic night
Should be the cry of love but it's a cry of fright
Some people never see the light
'Til it shines through bullet holes
'Til it shines through bullet holes

Hear the cry in the tropic night
Should be the cry of love but it's a cry of fright
Some people never see the light
'Til it shines through bullet holes
'Til it shines through bullet holes