Of a thousand young poets

Some days simply ask for John Prine.  This is one of them.

HE WAS IN HEAVEN BEFORE HE DIED by John Prine
There's a rainbow of babies
Draped over the graveyard
Where all the dead sailors
Wait for their brides
And the cold bitter snow
Has strangled each grassblade
Where the salt from their tears
Washed out with the tide

Chorus
And I smiled on the Wabash
The last time I passed it
Yes I gave her a wink
From the passenger side
And my foot fell asleep
As I swallowed my candy
Knowing he was in heaven
Before he died

Now the harbor's on fire
With the dreams and desires
Of a thousand young poets
Who failed 'cause they tried
For a rhyme without reason
Floats down to the bottom
Where the scavengers eat 'em
And wash in with the tide

Repeat Chorus:

The sun can play tricks
With your eyes on the highway
The moon can lay sideways
Till the ocean stands still
But a person can't tell
His best friend he loves him
Till time has stopped breathing
You're alone on the hill

Repeat Chorus:

Today would have been my 43rd wedding anniversary.  My former and late husband has been gone for eight years this month.   When we were first together he wrote a music column for the daily newspaper where we worked.  A review copy of John Prine's first album, followed by an interview with the singer/songwriter, converted all our friends into John Prine fans.  At the time of the photo above, Mr. Prine and Mr. Kelly bore a strong resemblance to each other.  Bless the 70s.

Yes, I guess you could call it a crush

If there is an unseemliness to women of a certain age going full-on fanatic, then I am guilty once again of the faux pas. I am not the equivalent of tent-dwelling outside the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles where the newest TWILIGHT feature will debut, for a list of reasons so long it might never end. I am quietly cruising around with my computer keyboard while a squirrel eyes me from the nearest palm tree. He can't possibly know there were walnuts in the oatmeal. It is not any of my doing that a random phrase or notion launches a John Prine song in my head.

Each week I write an introductory paragraph to the e-newsletter for a local rubber stamp store. Today I thought of life as an adventure, of escaping the mind-anaesthesia that is the Republican debates and other national debacles and, of course, heard the advice to, "...blow up your tv."

Mr. Prine, as the New York Times would probably still call him in civilized fashion, and his music landed aboard my wobbling raft - best guess - in about 1971. My then beau, later husband, then not, wrote music reviews. He played JOHN PRINE for everyone who stopped by, made them listen. Mr. Kelly was adamant about his music. Soon the album was in the collections of most friends. The words from those first songs and the ones that came after reside in my trunk of "This makes me think of that."

It is a bright morning in Los Angeles County. Peaches, as sung about in the following video, are no longer in season but the brilliant orb of an orange sits on my kitchen counter, symbol of California dreams, of sweetness, of plenty. My siblings and I always found an orange in the toe of our Christmas stockings. If you feel ill-matched to your life or your skin today, it is not too late to change or at least think about doing some part of all this differently. Pyrotechnics optional.

Showing up late for Memorial Day

For her Memorial Day post, Melissa Green shared a poem, The Rain, by Zbigniew Herbert. What I found in it was a reminder of a friend who had been best man at my wedding, had the office next to mine when we were reporters, wrote the script and scouted locations for the video we made to celebrate my then-husband's 40th birthday.

Both my maternal grandparents served in World War I on the battlefields of France, my father in the South Pacific. My family was shaped by war, grandparents meeting on the troop ship to Europe, mother and father meeting at the University of New Mexico, she a fine arts major, he in officer's candidate school.

With my grandparents, I grew up in the front row of every event that celebrated veterans. Both were American Legion, almost as a religion. Once their children were grown and married, their vacations were summer tours of Legion conventions. On many outings and Sunday drives, Grandpa's Mercury filled - since why would you go somewhere with a nearly-empty car - with fellow Legionnaires, I was the only one without a cap. (President Carter will stand in for my grandparents as cap model.)


Because of Herbert's poem, because of all the departed or lost and because he is my favorite ex-mailman/poet, I will let John Prine sing for my friend Jack.