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
