I wrote this song on my third visit to the refugee asylum center. Sarah often brought a poem to inspire residents to share words and phrases of their own. She would choose a line or two from the poem and write it at the top of the piece of paper she brought to hang on the wall for people to write on. On this particular day, she brought a poem called “The birds have vanished” by Li Po (701-762). The poem was translated from Chinese into English by Sam Hill. Sarah chose the following lines from the poem:

 

We sit together, the mountain and me

Until only the mountain remains

 

We wound up writing a song from these two lines and translating it into several different languages. We worked with several residents, one of whom (Hassib from Afghanistan) became so enamored of the song that he sang it at a couple of different Poetry Café evenings.

To read more about the writing of this song, visit Guiding Song: The Mountain And Me