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Aging, Art, Children's Books, Coming of age, Death of parent, Education, Fatherless daughters, learning to drive, Memoir, Milestones, Mother Daughter Relationship, Mr. Jones, Poetry, Rituals, The Gone of You
walking away on the last first day of school
WALKING AWAY – Cecil Day Lewis It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day – A sunny day with leaves just turning, The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play Your first game of football, then, like a satellite Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away Behind a scatter of boys. I can see You walking away from me towards the school With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free Into a wilderness, the gait of one Who finds no path where the path should be. That hesitant figure, eddying away Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem, Has something I never quite grasp to…
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After death of a spouse, Animals, Arizona Humane Society, Best friends, Dog Rescue, Dogs, Friendship, Love, Mary Oliver, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Rites of passage, Themes of Childhood, Van Morrison
in the shape of a heart
“And it is exceedingly short, his galloping life. Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old—or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give.” ― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs: Poems
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Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Cadillac Ranch, Coming of age, Drive All Night, The Price You Pay, The River, The River Tour 2016
by the river on independence day
I’m remembering the fireworks that exploded into the sky over Slane Castle on a summer evening in 1985 when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band made their Irish debut. Close to 100,000 of us had made the pilgrimage through the sleepy and disapproving village of Slane to see The Boss. Between assurances of increased security and a promise–– that remains unfulfilled–– that this would be the last rock concert to disturb them, the residents had been placated. Even the weather cooperated. It was the kind of sun-drenched day the Irish pray for. Everybody was young that day, even the crotchety old farmers who let us park our cars on…
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please read the letter . . .
The 74-year old man in black still sounds like the Robert Plant in your memory … the one who never failed to hit the paint-peeling high notes on a Led Zeppelin classic, the one who belongs up there on a Mount Rushmore of rock and roll frontmen. A sold-out crowd at the University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall is on its feet by the end of a revamped ‘Rock and Roll, and then a kind of hush as Plant leans into “Please Read The Letter.” It’s a slow-burn of a song that hints at infidelity and mistakes that can’t be fixed. It’s also a song about the way we used to…
