Slip Sliding Away

MacArthur Park is melting in the rain

In my youth, the heady days of rock and roll, I was in love with the lonely poets of song; Richard Harris, Paul Simon, Don McLean, Carole King, Donovan, Neil Diamond, Joan Baez, John Denver . . . the list goes on. I only sing in the car with the windows rolled up but I know the words almost instantly and if the song struck a cord in my life I am doomed to never forget it.

 The songsters of my parents' generation were musical instruments singing the words of others. But the lonely poets wrote of their own lives and so often mine. Since it looks as if my dreams of my youth are melting away I seem to be haunted by all those lyrics. I have a MP3 player where I have uploaded a lot of my favorites from the past so I can tune out. If music is to calm the savage breast why is it end up in tears?

 My list of lonely poets has grown with Prince and Bowie and Queen and Adele. It isn't the rhythm or tune it is the words. The songs are my audible poets.  And it is not just songs but novels. I remember whole paragraphs. Words written by an author as if they are living my life. In a world which largely doesn't read let alone write poems and seldom speaks in words longer than one syllable, let alone complex thought, I am obviously a creature of a dead world melting into the past. 

 How could our generation be so wrong that a whole political party wants to erase us? And everything we achieved. We created so many beautiful songs and stories and art? We embraced so many. We marched for peace and fought for equal rights. 

 Was I wrong? Has my entire life been a waste? Is the progress of a generation to mean nothing?

Comments

  1. Ien in the KootenaysDecember 12, 2016 at 9:17 AM

    No, of course you were not wrong. History is like a Fair Isle sweater. Sometimes a part of the yarn is carried along by the knitter but invisibly, awaiting its turn to be part of the pattern again.

    ReplyDelete

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