Bruce Cockburn - Use Me While You Can Lyrics

There's a black and white crow on the back of a two toned sheep
in a field of broken yellow stalks
below looming cliffs
high above the plain little grey houses
blend with giant jagged boulders
and pale weathered stumps
life in the ghost of the bush
wind whips the acacias and strange forked palms
that cluster around the water hole
suddenly, out of the blowing sand
a milk-white camel appears
turbaned rider, blue robe billowing,
bounces with the shambling trot
wears a sword and a rifle on his back
and hanging from his neck a transistor radio
you blink and like ghosts, they're gone
under the wan disk of sand-masked sun, a woman grins;
spits expertly into the path of a struggling black beetle six feet away
hoists her water bucket onto her head and strides off up the trail

Sun a steel ball glowing
behind endless blowing sand
Sun a steel ball glowing
dust of fallen empires slowly flowing through my hands
Use me while you can

Pearl held in black fingers
is the moon behind dry trees
Pearl held in black fingers
Bird inside the rib cage is beating to be free
Use me while you can

I've had breakfast in New Orleans, dinner in Timbuktu
I've lived as a stranger in my own house too
Dark hand waves in lamplight
Cowrie shell patterns change
And nothing will be the same again

Bullet in a sand storm
Looking for a place to land
Bullet in a sand storm
Full heart beats an empty one
In the deck they dealt to man
Use me while you can
Use me while you can