Old West Virginia Mountain. Me on howl and banjo. 

Cluck Ole Hen

Ghettomusic

Eleanor and I were sitting 
On the porch. The Evening Star 
Was hanging in the still blue dark,
Her children calling “In free, in free!”
Summer heat as thick as oil,
Magnolia scent pours from the blossoms of the trees. 

Eleanor says “I don’t know
But people being what they are,
You just don’t talk about this thing,
Don’t mention it at all! At all!
I can’t help thinking “This is it
She won’t be here when I come back home in the Fall.

The children come up from the barn
With jars to catch the fireflies. 
We talk of movies, politics,
Religion, old times: Oh God! Oh God!
If only every moment in my life
Could be so perfect in the way it’s flawed. 

The darkness settles on the grass,
Mosquitoes buzz, a baby cries. 
I’ll see if Bob can drive you to the bus
She says. It’s late. It’s late. 
We always wait until we worry it. 
We always wait. We always wait. 

And on the porch before I go
She takes my hand so tenderly.
“Sometimes,” she says, “It’s hard.”
I stammer back, “I know! I know!”
We stand there needing more
Not knowing what or how or when 
And then we go. 

So this is it: the heat,
The summer sounds of night, 
The quiet light of singing stars,
Her hand in mine, the sky. 

Grief is gracious in its time,
And sometimes sweet,
But mostly deep,
And mostly hard,
And mostly dry.

Monday Songs

Eleanor

First in a set of songs, Monday Songs, about what a Monday is like when you're living through a plague in San Francisco in 1985

Seven, I wake up and
I think that today will bre different
But nothing is different. 

The morning’s grey, the dawn is dead,
But rise gives thanks for God’s good work
Don’t even try to understand
Just make the bed and shower. 

Laundry and dishes—and
I promised to call up the clinic
But nobody answers.

Go to Jill’s and pick up the table
(Bobbi Campbell, Bobbi Campbell)
Don’t forget to thank Dr. Stevens
(Bill Hartman, Bill Hartman)

Saturday it’s Bob and Fred’s
A barbecue or something—
Eric Moore was from Ohio
Should I write his brother—
Keep so many
Lists of friends gone and
Little things to do
Little things to keep me from forgetting
Who they were and what a life is. 

Riding the bus now—and
I’m trying to notice the faces
There’s so many faces.

And Dutch and Jamews and Dave and Jim
And open up and enter in
Embrace this life which from the start
Confounds the mind and tears the heart.

Lists

Darwin, in a fever, fishes from the side of his hospital bed, an ode to his favorite animals.

Fish

Christmas, a nurse, sings to Darwin about growing up in the South while David, the ghost of Jonathan's lover, reminds him of their past together. 

White Picket Fence/Soho

Jonathan and Darwin follow Henry and Gertrude down the Amazon.

The Amazon Basin

Jonathan tries to convince the ghost of his dead lover, David, that they can still, somehow, stay together.

We'll Take a Walk

Henry, having died, finds his map problematic in searching for Heaven, while Darwin, in a feverish out-of-body experience, looks for Heaven. 

Quest for the City

Jonathan sings by the bank of the Ganges a song intended to bring him home to Mercy for a final confrontation with mortality. 

Go to the River

This song begins with Jonathan, a patient who floats off in fantasies based on a book he is reading. It begins with the main characters from the book, Henry and Gertrude Anstruther, talking about their turn of the century tour through the world and ending up on the Titanic. Right before it sinks, Lavinia Rickets entertains the passengers on the Titanic and then Henry and Gertrude say goodbye.

As Good as it Gets

Jonathan watches Darwin as Darwin observes his family place graves on the flowers of their dead relatives at the end of a family reunion while singing an old Southern hymn. Jonathan realizes that he has come to deeply care about Darwin at the same time he begins to suffer the grief of losing him, and begins his own journey to healing. 

Harry Kelley

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