The Pilgrimage

(Music: Hiroaki Kato / Words: Mutsumi Tanamura)

I.) Journey’s End: Recollections
O wasteland, are you world’s end proving?
Here soars this hollow tower The goal of our reaching
O dismay, you are strangely soothing
My journey’s final hour Suggests my retreating

And still, looking back my years
All our past is now far beyond our reach
I hear million voices ringing so dear
Slowly forming now syllables that preach…

North — I hear the children cry
South — I hear the preachers lie
West — I see an old man lie
East — I see our tears run dry

In yon souq, echoed a call to prayer
Foreign faces, mine was one of those
Unknown tongues and songs, yet much to share
Peace o’er war, that’s the tapestry people and time composed

Ceaseless searching for the promised land
Claimed were countless souls along the way
If just pain is what our life demands
Why’d we yet struggle for another day?

O Fate, why were we to roam?
Fathers’ dreams long-sought fading now so fast
Seen all places, none did we find a “home”
At this goal we stand — as if on breaking glass

II.) Babel: Questions on What We Are
O Gate of God, for thee have we trod
These trackless paths in growing pain?
Our tongues disarranged, we’ve all been strangers
Let the meanings hid exclaim

Lo this empty tower, where men’s pride sought for power
This tomb of greed now crumbles down
Uncast me this spell and free my soul from its shell
Yet again my feet shall feel this ground

Now
Reaching, seeking Needing, bleeding
I’m
Dreaming, scheming Hoping, groping

Pilgrims we are nowhere- bound
A pilgrim you are nowhere-bound

Have we been just trying to reach the sky
cursing our fate that we cannot fly?
For that purpose, we have sacrificed a lot of things:
peace, nature, health, honesty…
while causing hate, disease, murder, wars…
Or maybe it was all programmed in our genes.
Does it mean we were born to suffer,
born to kill each other and to rape the planet?
If life should be just filled with pain and suffering,
what is the meaning of life?
why were we born in the first place?
We’ve been through so many years, so many places,
seen so many faces, heard so many lies
just trying to find the answer.

There is no sound but my every heartbeat
There is no sound but my every heartbeat
Fading………

III.) Daisies: Visions of Home
I wake as the dust falls clear
Never before, now I know what I’m really seeing
Fragments of the past, cohering
Shape a vision – daisies blooming austerely

Daisies on our homeland green
We’ve forgot their beauty fragile yet enduring
Long lost but we’re now redeeming –
In reality does lie what we live for – hope

IV.) Restoration: Homeward-bound
Dreaming, scheming
Needing, bleeding
I’m
Hoping, groping
Yet now we’re not to roam
But are heading Home
Looking for reasons
Our fathers could not find
But we know now is the time
Come will the seasons
Seeds of life will be sown
Rebuilt will be our Home

Pilgrims we are homeward-bound
A pilgrim with your soul unbound

Dreaming, scheming
Needing, bleeding I’m
Reaching, teaching
Hoping, groping

Pilgrims we are homeward-bound
A pilgrim with your soul unbound, you are

Do You love us?
Do You ever exist?
If You do not love us, who would?
Whom should we turn to?
Where could we ever find peace of mind?