Back in college days at Columbia in the mid 70′s I played harmonica to Jim Middleton’s guitar from time to time. Once we went to the Wall St subway station and played some Jerry Jeff Walker
Jim was from Austin. His dad was a speech writer for LBJ in the 60′s. He told the story about how after LBJ left the white house he had the LBJ Library built at UT in Austin. He was afraid subsequently that people would not go to his library. So He asked UT officials to make regular announcements over the stadium speakers during football games that students were free to use the bathrooms at the LBJ Libraries during half time. It was never clear to me as to whether the UT officials actually carried out this request.
I don’t know what happened to Middleton. He has not showed up in my facebook account as many of the others from my past have done in the last year or so. Lately some of the guys have taken to recounting the bars there, the west end, augies, the mill, and others whose names I’ve forgotten.
Yesterday after digging out from under two feet of snow here in the DC metro area, I remembered the Gypsy King’s Bamboleo.
And today after digging I recalled a poem I wrote in the 80′s about a trailer inside of which my gradma lay dying. The trailer was outside the old farmhouse in central Pennsylvania on the farm where she raised my dad and seven other kids.
Grandmá Dying
How quiet is the snowy night–
the grey white clouds
lit by the white
sleeves of the branches
of bare trees.
An arc lamp shines through the branches,
the arc light orange like fire.
No breeze,
but snowdrifts
teeth an inch
of arc light.
The limbs sparkle.
Arc light shaded from
the trailer’s wheels beams
upon the snowed door jamb–
wired light upon the chrome.
The crescent moon points home,
the tide of clouds
against the lunar horns
like á half formed thought
or plain mystery–
snow falls about the branches
and of the ground like minerals.
Shiny streaks prick the snow piles.
I didn’t think much of the commercials for the Superbowl tonight.
Was it just a coincidence that the call of the New Orleans saints was
… “Who Dat”
I think not.
