Dimitri

There was a time when with Athens finest dancers he could hold the floor
And he could dance non stop for three hours or even four
But Dimitri won't be going back home any more
And his bones will rest here in a foreign shore.

He walks with a cane and his once dark hair now gray
And one might say that he has known a better day
And for the past five years he has led a lonely life
Since the death of Nana his beloved Grecian wife.

They came to live in Melbourne in nineteen forty three
When he was twenty four one year older than she
And their only offspring he died as a young man
In the late sixties on war duty in Vietnam.

Of the ups and downs of life the old man know
On the thirteenth of august thirty six years ago
Dimitri junior in a coffin to them brought home
A part of you too die when you lose one of your own.

In a strong Greek accent in the English tongue he speak
But when with his old mates the language used is Greek
And the songs he sing he sings in his old tongue
And though his bones grow old his dreams will remain young.

There was a time he could dance all night long
Back in the days when he was young and strong
But that was years ago and far away
And thousands of miles north of where he lives today.