you don't need me to tell you things about bob dylan... whose 62nd birthday is today. i'm listening to the live 1975 disc... rolling thunder... "all your seasick sailors they're all rowing home" ... a couple years ago i had a brief exchange with a now-retired colleague about the merits of dylan's poetry... dylan as poet... seemed astonishing to me that he needed defending... had my friend been listening at all over the years... this is a great american poetry woven of western dreams, southern defeats, eastern desire, northern toughness... informed by old italian english french balladry and smartass modernism... a beat aesthetic without the pose... delivering hard heart truth better than anybody i can name... travelling a personal, public, semi-private path... a generous poetic... to a fault... expansive and inclusive... as woody wanted... a poet in our ears... where it counts

well i wasn't going to talk about bob...

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

that thought about weariness rings a bell as we wind down the school year again... #27 for me... but who's counting... this time of year we get to have a little weariness... and we get to talk about it.. not as a complaint... just as a casual fact like "hey the sun came up this morning." but these days always find me feeling a little lost... watching the end rush up with all of its specific demands... noticing the vast prairie beyond... knowing it's just some optical illusion... that summer is short and of all the great plans (reading writing going coming) only a few will arrive... but they will be good ones... no doubt

graduation tomorrow morning... godspeed , kids

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And may others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars,
And climb on every rung,
And may you stay forever young...

Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual. He had the vision and the talent to make a pop record that contained the whole world.

Bruce Springsteen

 

talk to me

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