9/11/24

Upon the Steps

Under a sky the same clear blue

Too bright

Without towers to darken

I played a song for a friend who wasn’t there

But the joyous beat clattered and strained without her to dance to it

A plastic fork breaking in the cold,

Had to fade it out

So I retired it right there

Like the jersey of a fallen player, and told the rest of us as such.

We all sat around, wondering what to make of it all, a world where they bring down towers and Elvis exists and the blue sky smiles down one way or another.

“I’ve been everywhere, man” I quipped in a Johnny Cash voice, setting up to play Johnny Cash records, and lately, I have.

I drove by my old house, and it’s different and I got dazed because..because..Life goes on.

I ducked into the woods on a lunch break yesterday instead of eating, and went to the mountain ridge that used to be the ocean floor. 430 million years flies when you’re having fun.

Someone had built a stair for the trail, a clock case of deep time, shaded by oaks and hickory. It called, so I paused, then answered. Sometimes it takes me a minute to clue in.

A chunk of seabed sat among the acorns and dust of a dry September on those steps, an ancient shell peaking out of the rock.

I picked it up, and trudged back down the mountain to the next show, my yellow chuck taylors leaving all star prints in the dust.

They say the moon suit boot marks of the astronauts will last until the end of time. Mine won’t.

After the last song played and we all stood for the anthem and I laughed and gaped and shook her hand and then doffed my cap when a lady told me she shot down Bo Diddley’s advances way back in the day, I turned my car east, and headed home.

The father of lies is good at what he does, so we must be better.

Don’t stop trying.

–Josh