Who Will Answer

From the canyons of the mind
We wander on and stumble blindly
Through the often tangled maze
Of starless nights and sunless days
While asking for some kind of clue
Or road to lead us to the truth
But who will answer

Side by side two people stand
Together vowing, hand in hand
That love's embedded in their hearts
But soon an empty feeling starts
To overwhelm their hollow lives
And when we seek the hows and whys
Who will answer

On a strange and distant hill
A young man's lying very still
His arms will never hold his child
Because a bullet running wild
Has cut him down

And now we cry, Dear God
Oh, why, oh, why
But who will answer

High upon a lonely ledge
A figure teeters near the edge
And jeering crowds collect below
To egg him on with, go, man, go
But who will ask what led him
To his private day of doom
And who will answer

If the soul is darkened
By a fear it cannot name
If the mind is baffled when
The rules don't fit the game
Who will answer, who will answer
Who will answer

In the rooms of dark and shades
The scent of sandalwood pervades
The colored thoughts in muddled heads
Reclining in rumpled beds of
Unmade dreams that can't come true
And when we ask what we should do
Who, who will answer

Neath the spreading mushroom tree
The world revolves in apathy
As overhead, a row of specks
Roars on, drowned out by discotheques
And if a secret button's pressed
Because one man has been outguessed
Who will answer

Is our hope in walnut shells
Worn round the neck with temple bells
Or deep within some cloistered walls
Where hooded figures pray in halls
Or crumbled books on dusty shelves
Or in our stars, or in ourselves
Who will answer

If the soul is darkened
By a fear it cannot name
If the mind is baffled when
The rules don't fit the game
Who will answer, who will answer
Who will answer