Rita Cantu: Music

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After the devestating southern California wildfires in 2003, thousands of homes were destroyed and a number of lives lost. This song was written about those fires, for the people, but most of all, to reflect the timelessness of the land and its cycles of growth and healing.

The Balance Holds
© Feb.14, 2004 Rita Cantu

There’s a fire on the wind and it’s circling again
in an endless cycle of change.
And the forest stands high with its trees dead and dry
as they wait for the touch of the flames.

The homes on the hills stand deserted and still
in the smoky red gaze of the sun.
In the wake of the drought, fire and insect win out
and the forest goes, but the balance holds ….

With their lives on the line, they fight time after time
to turn back the Grand Prix and the Old,
But the fire and the wind turn again and again
till there’s hardly a safe place to hold.

One hundred thousand grab all that they can
and they run for their lives from the foe
A thousand homes burn as the firestorms churn
But the land still knows that the balance holds.

When the flames flicker down in the fire-scarred ground
not a root is left holding the soil.
And there’s nothing to tame the wild rush of the rain
as it hits the steep slopes and arroyos.

The canyons are gouged in the flash of the floods,
and a wall of water and stone
follows pathways of flames, and the lives that it claims
mean again the homes will stand alone …

Now we look to the past and the questions we ask
deal with ways we could turn back the time
To a century ago when the fires burned slow,
and the balance stayed, neat, in the lines.

But our science will tell what we see very well:
that the gambling stakes have grown high.
And when the cards fold, we can run, fight, or hold,
but the House will win, no matter how we try,

But the land still knows though the hills are dry,
that the grasses will turn their slopes green,
Because life is a strong, precious thing.
Though the trees bow to beetle and flame,
the land will be verdant again ….

And the cycle flows,
And the balance holds!
And new life unfolds,
As the story’s told!