[Verse] The sound comes first, a broken chorus from up, up, up in the air I knew it from the past how it rolls above the roofs up there Then one cuts through the afternoon, and soon there are a few Until a hundred wild geese come with their changing line into my view They trade the front between themselves, the shape is never still One drops back, another takes the lead They shift their places as they need A language carried over miles, impossible for me to understand even if I try [Pre-Chorus] I watch the gap between them change I watch the pattern bend They never seem to lose the course Although I cannot see its end [Chorus] Gone across the blue A flock of wild geese passing through Gone across the blue With every distant call that carries through They come from somewhere far away And head beyond what I can see Gone across the blue For them a journey, for me a fleeting moment oh they look so free There they go Hear them call One drops back One climbs tall Round the bend Out of view Gone... Gone across the blue [Verse] I saw them first when I was small, and I didn't know why, the geese filled the autumn air and crowded up the sky. I watched until my neck grew sore, watched them disappear And never thought that years from then I'd still be looking here The seasons marked the years for me in ways I didn't count The things I thought would stay with me changed shape and left or came around The people in my life were different, the person looking too But every year those distant calls returned above the blue [Pre-Chorus] Their route was never mine to know It crossed beyond the frame But when that sound came back again The season had its name [Chorus] Gone across the blue Across the fields and countries they already knew Gone across the blue Across a world that turns beneath the route they travel through The years pass by without a pause And still they fly the route, even if there are others now Gone across the blue And every time they passed above, my life was not the same There they are again Calling through the distance There they are again Already moving on I can hear them I can see them Gone... Gone across the blue [Verse] There were years when I was waiting for a life I thought I'd lead Years when what I had was more than anything I seemed to need There were people I stopped remembering, and faces I couldn't lose And things I once was certain of that time would change or prove The town could look familiar while I hardly felt the same A window changed, a garden grew, a doorway lost its frame And then, above the ordinary, that old sound would break again into the air A flock was crossing once again, as if no year had happened there [Bridge] They have crossed oceans I will never see And borders drawn by hands that mean nothing to their wings They know the turns between the places Without a road, without a sign And somewhere far beyond this view Their journey carries on through time I only get the passing minute The cry, the wings, the turning V Then all that distance takes them from me And leaves the changing years with me The sound comes from a distance The formation comes in sight For one brief stretch of sky The old and new pass side by side [Final-Chorus] Gone across the blue The same wide route they always knew Gone across the blue Still changing shape as every wing comes through They've crossed the world between their seasons While my own years have changed my view Gone across the blue And once again they disappear beyond the blue [Outro] The last few wings are fading The calls are thinning too For just a little longer There's movement in the blue Then nothing but the evening And whatever the years will do Until the sound comes back again Gone across the blue Somewhere beyond the distance Somewhere I never knew They're making their way onward Gone... Gone across the blue
