Turning Toward The Morning   

© 1975 Gordon Bok , BMI

 

One of the things that provoked this song was a letter last November from a friend who had had a very difficult year and was looking for the courage to keep on plowing into it.  Those times, you lift your eyes unto the hills, as they say, but the hills of Northern New England in November can be about as much comfort as a cold crowbar.  You have to look ahead a bit, then, and realize that all the hills and trees and flowers will still be there come Spring, usually more permanent that your troubles.  And, if your courage occasionally fails, that's ok too: nobody expects you to be as strong (or as old) as the land.

 

When the deer has bedded down

And the bear has gone to ground,

And the Northern goose has wondered off

To warmer bay and sound,

It's so easy in the cold to feel

The darkness of the year

And the heart is growing lonely

For the morning.

 

                        Oh, my Joanie, don't you know

                        That the stars are swinging slow,

                        And the seas are rolling easy

                        As they did so long ago?

                        If I had a thing to give you,

                        I would tell you one more time

                        That the world is always turning

                        Toward the morning.

 

Now October's growing thin

And November's coming home;

You'll be thinking of the season

And the sad things that you've see,

And you hear that old wind walking,

Hear him singing high and thin,

You could swear he's out there singing

Of your sorrow.

 

                        Oh, my Joanie….

 

When the darkness falls around you

And the Northwind comes to blow,

And you hear him call your name out

As he walks the brittle snow:

That old wind don't mean you trouble,

He don't care or even know,

He's just walking down the darkness

Toward the morning.

 

                        Oh, my Joanie….

 

It's a pity you don't know

What the little flowers know.

They can't face the cold November,

They can't take the wind and snow:

They put their glories all behind them,

Bow their heads and let it go,

But you know they'll be there shining

In the morning.

 

                        Oh, my Joanie….

 

Now, my Joanie don't you know

That the days are rolling slow,

And the winter's walking easy,

As he did so long ago?

And, if that wind should come and ask you,

"Why's my Joanie weeping so?"

Won't you tell him that you're weeping

For the morning?

 

                        Oh, my Joanie….

 

 

 

Turning Toward the Morning is recorded on the album Gordon Bok and Bob Zentz - Together Again for the First Time,Because You Asked, and the Bok, Muir, & Trickett albums First Fifteen Years Vol I and Turning Toward the Morning, and is also in the songbook Time and the Flying Snow