On the Flip of a Coin

From the point he gazed, from the choice was made But walk the cave or the shore The oily cave seemed to breathe on him from gravestone jaws His little hand grasped in anguish as he weighed up his coin Somewhere a blue eyed girl in the world is just waiting for a boy Footprints trailed as if trod by slaves up to the gray cave floor But not one graze from anything ever escaping this fort So with coin on hand his joy came back when ordered to take the shore Why on earth, as he wandered the warmth am I obeying this coin Turn your life on the flip of this coin Turn upside, a choice you'd normally avoid And promise me you'll follow what it says Whatever it says Again, walk within the trusted beach or swim the swell of the sea And again the scarier alternative looked like certain death to he He'd never learnt to skill of swimming, it never occurred to be very easy And again he winced as he flipped his coin and it twirled to his feet How is this sane? He blamed the coin now aiming for the waves As he hesitated at the swirl of water that now raged and rained Blue eyed girls were waiting and he was drowning in the spray Blue eyed girls, he should have been acquainted with But for shouting and flailing Turn your life on the flip of this coin Turn upside a choice you'd normally avoid And promise me you'll follow what it says Whatever it says He finally slugs it back to land feeling chewed up and foolish Empties his pockets on the sand spewing a pool each Staggers back to his dad who's too cool to be So he says, why did you have me follow this stupid rule, please To be honest little fellow, I'll tell you I was just as afraid as you But you said you wanted to get with people and places ever new And I got a bit scared about the fate of my baby son's future So I invented a reason to see whether you could ever make do As soon as you appeared behind that rock looking angry at me I soon realized what a hell of a man you've ended up being I knew you'd worked out how to swim which I hadn't had in me And I stand as a companion of you proudest a man has ever been Turn your life on the flip of this coin Turn upside a choice you'd normally avoid And promise me you'll follow what it says Whatever it says