Bruce Cockburn - Isn't That What Friends Are For? Lyrics

Heavy northern autumn sky
mist on forest
dark spruce, bright maple
and the great lake rolling forever
to the narrow gray beach

I look west along the red road of the frail sun
to where it hovers between shelf of cloud
and spiky trees, receding shore

The world is full of seasons
of anguish, of laughter
and it comes to mind to write you this

Nothing is sure
nothing is pure
and no matter who we think we are
everyone gets his chance to be
nothing

Love's supposed to heal
but it breaks my heart
to feel the pain in your voice
but you know
it's all going somewhere
and I would crush my heart
and throw it in the street
if I could pay for your choice

Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?

We're the insect life of paradise
crawl across leaf or among
towering blades of grass
glimpse only sometimes the amazing
breadth of heaven

You're as loved as you were
before the strangeness swept through
our bodies, our houses, our streets
when we could speak without codes
and light swirled around like
wind-blown petals at our feet

I've been scraping little shavings
off my ration of light
and I've formed it into a ball
and each time I pack a bit more onto it
and I make a bowl of my hands and
I scoop it from its secret cache
under a loose board in the floor
and I blow across it and I send it to you
against those moments when the darkness
blows under your door

Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?