writing while driving

a couple of years ago i was driving home in the september dusk and darkness, toward the last dull glows of the sunset. the windows were down, the air was warm, i was blissfully happy … and i just started singing, without really knowing why or what about. that became this poem, with its own melody. i hope it acquires enough substance someday to become a full-fledged “song,” but maybe that would ruin it. who knows.

anyway, on wednesday, as i was driving home to lunch, i started singing another song out of the images and phrases that had been floating through my mind all morning. i sat in my car along the curb as i wrote down the chorus, then composed the first verse while eating lunch.

i tried to write more on it later, but absolutely nothing came to mind, except another scrap of an idea of a thought.

until today, when i was driving back to work after lunch. then out of thin air popped the second verse.

it’s still rather rough around the edges and needs some sort of bridgey or contemplative differency thing thrown in there, but it is still entirely singable, which shocks and amazes me.

this leads me to the conclusion that if i drove more, i would write more songs — most of the ones i wrote during college happened in or on the way to the parking lot, actually. funny how that works.

— — —

there’s silver in my hair

there’s creases in your face

we’ve had so much to learn about

this strange and different place

that time flew by

and children died

but still the world seems new again

when particles collide

maybe that’s just part of growing old

remembering, revising

all the stories that we told

when we were young

and didn’t know

all the things we’d never show

now

what would it do to you

if i should fade away

like sunset into sunrise

at the dawning of the day?

when death’s defied

we’ll be the bride

and in the earth that was your birth

our particles collide

and maybe that’s just part of growing old

remembering, revising

all the stories that we told

when we were young

and tried to grow

all the seeds we’d never sow

now