© 1997 Ragnar Fyri. All rights reserved.


Like a Penguin and a Polar Bear

Ideas turn up in strange places some times. There's a couple of women from India at the place I work (Ye, they work there too), and one day the foreman asked one of them a question I didn't quite catch, but maybe you can imagine it when you hear that she laughed and said "Not in this life - maybe in the next one!" Or maybe not. Anyway, I considered telling her "Okay, that's a deal" when it struck me how impossible it must be to make an appointment for your next life! Even if you both remember, it's not certain that you will be reborn in the same time and place (or even close enough to meet) - you can't even be sure you'll both be the same species! So I started thinking about how different two animals can be. Sure, you can probably come up with a pair that's physically more different, but one point with a penguin and a polar bear is that albeit they live in the same kind of climate they are separated by vast areas far too hot for them,so they will never meet... Anyway, I eventually came up with this song:

We are living our lives in two different worlds
where each of us is playing a role
But baby, as far as seeing me is concerned
you're no better than a sightless mole!
We are wending our ways along different roads
How I wish I could go with you there
But we might just as well have been antipodes
like a penguin and a polar bear!

  Like a deep sea fish
  and a high-flying albatross
  we'll never meet eye to eye
  In two different spheres
  we are sharing the same loss:
  You can't swim, and I can't fly

  And I dream about you day and night
  but you are plainly not aware
  We see everything in different light
  like a penguin and a polar bear!

(another verse?)
(interlude. repeat chorus?)

"Reincarnation"?
"In our next life we'll elope"?
Small consolation!
I am running out of hope!
We shall be reincarnated
but you'll be here and I'll be there
We can surely not be mated
as a penguin and a polar bear!

  Like a deep sea fish
  and a high-flying albatross
  we'll never meet eye to eye
  In two different spheres
  we are sharing the same loss:
  You can't swim, and I can't fly

  And I dream about you day and night
  but you are plainly not aware
  We see everything in different light
  like a penguin and a polar bear!

  Like a deep...!
  Like a deep...!
  Like a deep sea fish
  and a high-flying albatross
  we'll never meet eye to eye
  In two different spheres
  we are sharing the same loss:
  You can't swim, and I can't fly

  And I dream about you day and night
  but you are plainly not aware
  We see everything in different light
  like a penguin and a polar -
    penguin and a polar -
      penguin and a polar bear!


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