All My Children Of The Sun

The navigator said to the engineer,

I think our radio's dead.

I can hear but I can't send,

And there's bad weather ahead.

The pilot said to the co-pilot,

Our right engine's gone.

But if we can make it over these mountains,

Perhaps I can set her down.

All my children of the sun!

Five hundred miles from nowhere

We bellylanded on a river.

We bid a quick goodbye

To that ship of silver.

Twenty-five piled out the window,

Twenty reached the shore.

We turned to see our metal bird

Sink to rise no more.

All my children of the sun!

We found some floating logs,

We found some sharp stones,

We cut some vines and made a raft.

It was our only hope.

The navigator said he thought there was

A town somewhere downstream.

So now each tried to do his best

To paddle as a team.

All except one young guy

Who kept arguing with the navigator.

He said he'd read about a waterfall

We would come to sooner or later.

At a river's bend he persuaded us

To bring our craft to beach.

But a search party found the river smooth

As far as eye could reach.

All my children of the sun.

Once again he persuaded us to stop.

We cursed at the delay.

Once again we found the river

Flowing on the same old way.

We said, shut up your arguing.

You give us all a pain.

Why don't you pitch in and go your part--

Be constructive for a change?

All my children of the sun.

Still egghead kept on talking

In the same longwinded way,

We said, if you won't paddle,

Get the hell out of our way.

We told him to go sit

Far back at the stern.

Then we strained to paddle harder,

And then the river made a turn.

All my children of the sun.

One paddler heard sound of tapping

And what he saw, when he did turn,

Was egghead with a sharp stone,

Cutting the vines that bound the stern.

With a cry of rage the paddler

Leaped up to his feet,

He swung his long pole

Knocked egghead into the deep.

But now the logs were splaying out.

The raft had come unbound.

Like mad we paddled for the shore,

Before all would drown.

All my children of the sun.

A search party went out to find more vines

To tie the raft up tight.

In twenty minutes they returned,

Their faces pale with fright.

They said a quarter mile down river

We DID find a waterfall.

It's over a hundred feet in height.

It would have killed us all.

All my children of the sun.

And that is why on the banks

Of a far off wilderness stream,

Which none of us, none of us,

Will ever see again,

There stands a cross for someone,

Hardly older than a boy.

Who, we thought, was only

Trying to destroy.

All my children of the sun.