Better Things

Ten thousand years of big ideas

Distilled into a billion fears

A grand design, a shiny rocket

A bullet in a bully's pocket

So mesmerized by particles

We disregard the articles

The ones we wrote to keep the peace

Sullied now in blood and greed and grease

Is this the best that we can do?

Oh I can think of better things, can't you?

With the devil's pitchfork in our hands

We turn the fields of foreign lands

We mine the Gulf, we dig it deeper

We free the serpent from its keeper

Yet these are the hands that fix the bones

The ones that build with sticks and stones

These are the hands that plant the tree

The ones that pull the newborn baby free

Is this the best that we can do?

Oh I can think of better things, can't you?

Oh I can think of better things

That hands can make and hearts can sing

For now we deal with those for whom

A life is but a carnal tomb

In which the darkness holds no power

Neither does the final hour

We may lament the deadly art

Of tiny atoms torn apart

Visions that we can't return

And future fires in which we fear we'll burn

But this is the art of those before

Who found a cure within the core

The noble mind behind the ray

That eased our earthly cares away

Is this the best that we can do?

Oh I can think of better things, can't you?

Oh I can think of better things

That hands can make and hearts can sing

And hearts can sing

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