Heart of This Land

Words & Music by Christopher Kent

A stranger, I come to this tropical island
Mountains that rise to the sky from the sea
Flowers and birds and a tropical jungle
Smell of the tide and the wind in the trees
Up on the mountain, swimming pools shining
Beautiful villas look over the bay
Down by the water, the shacks and the dirty streets
Where barefoot children play

I feel like a stranger here
Caught in a world I do not understand
I feel like there’s a million miles
Between my heart and the heart of this land

Up over the hills in the gulfstream winds
Black turkey buzzards adrift in the sky
They circle in silence as evening approaches
Watching the ground with a hungry eye
Sellers and beggars, women with baskets
Crowding the streets as the sun goes down
Strange, foreign faces, so hard to decipher
Stare as I walk through the streets of the town

I feel like a stranger here
Caught in a world I do not understand
I feel like there’s a million miles
Between my heart and the heart of this land

I sit here staring out into the darkness
Watching a pale moon rise in the sky
Still haunted by faces and voices of strangers
Off in the distance the night birds cry
Soon I’ll be back on the streets of my city
Dreaming of mountains that rise from the sea
Wondering how there could be so much distance
Between this island and me

I feel like a stranger here
Caught in a world I do not understand
I feel like there’s a million miles
Between my heart and the heart of this land