Music & Memory

Popped in the disc you made me last fall,
to hear that new Dylan song with the Om-ish beat, you know the CD
with Dylan, Parson, and Young written on the top, the one we listened to
over and over before blazing trails, in the mist turned rain on
the cliffs where redwood trees shot up and away like rooted rockets--
yeah that one.
I call to tell you I'm listening over and over to the chorus: "old man take a look at my life"
and you respond by saying "I need to make you a new CD; that one is old."
I don't want a newly burned, present moment compilation
because the past-time favorites usher in connections to the times when
you were here, and the new stuff--well, no matter how good it is--will be
played in a climate of absence, and who wants to reminisce on lonliness?
All I can do these days is write poetry about what was
and what appears, even if it just appears in memory,
because hanging on is a full time job,
and music is a hallway bridging the gaps between
present need and future fulfillment.
So let me hear Neil Young whail about becoming exactly like his dad,
because I love the part of you that picked such a song
and identifies with its content now and forever more.
Or perhaps its not about you at all,
but about my own desire to be seen and reflected on by my father.
You would never conversate with me about it either way;
just don't make me a new CD.