Cactus Tree - Joni Mitchell

There's a man who's been out sailing

In a decade full of dreams

And he takes her to a schooner

And he treats her like a queen

Bearing beads from California

With their amber stones and green

He has called her from the harbor

He has kissed her with his freedom

He has heard her off to starboard

In the breaking and the breathing

of the water weeds

While she was busy being free

There's a man who's climbed a mountain

And he's calling out her name

And he hopes her heart can hear

3000 miles he calls again

He can think her there beside him

He can miss her just the same

He has missed her in the forest

While he showed her all the flowers

And the branches sang the chorus

As he climbed the scaly towers of a forest tree

While she was somewhere being free

There's a man who sent a letter

And he's waiting for her reply

He has asked her of her travels

Since the day they said goodbye

He writes wish you were beside me

We could make it if we try

He has seen her at the office

With her name on all his papers

Through the sharing of the profits

He will find it hard to shake her

from these memories

And she's so busy being free

There's a lady in the city

And she thinks she loves them all

There's the one who's thinking of her

There's the one who sometimes calls

There's the one who writes her letters

With his facts and figures scrawl

She has brought them to her senses

They have laughed inside her laughter

Now she rallies her defenses

For she fears that one

will ask her for eternity

for eternity

And she's so busy being free

There's a man who sends her medals

He is bleeding from the war

There's a jouster and a jester

and a man who owns a store

There's a drummer and a dreamer

And you know there may be more

She will love them when she sees them

They will lose her if they follow

And she only means to please them

And her heart is full and hollow

like a cactus tree

While she's so busy being free

Like a cactus tree

Being free