Music Hath the Power

A-9 Dance - the last dance before going off to different high schools. HE, not the one all the other girls like, but still, a cute one, asks me to dance to Strangers on the Shore - a SLOW dance! Each strain of that urgent and soulful clarinet underlines in neon the romantic circumstances of fourteen year old love: he notices me, he asks me, he’s touching me! I’m swooning with infatuation... or my belt is too tight. Same breathless effect.

Although the afternoon sun is blazing, this near-end-of-term June day, we might as well be on a moonlit cruise. I have stars in my eyes, and the dappled sun on the side yard offers enough shade, (hopeful thought), to hide my flop sweat.

All these years later, Acker Blik’s mellow reedy sound conjures that gestalt of poignancy of “addled-essence.”  I wonder where the HE in that scenario ended up. I’m happy where I am... Hopeful he is too.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Daughter Mo came down this weekend from the Bay Area to celebrate her 20th High School Reunion.  She’s an organizer supreme... picnic Saturday afternoon in Eagle Rock; dance party gala that evening in Chinatown. Meanwhile, Gran’Pun and I get to be  Grandies to the amazing five year old - her daughter - who holds magic, mayhem, and keys to our hearts. 

She has enthused and amused herself all day, by meeting other kids, working out on park play structures, doing magic with her granddad, swimming, and watching “Frozen” here at home. I sing her to sleep Saturday with only a couple of the usual repertoire of twenty or so lullabies. Quickly, she begins snoring softly beside me, yet in the morning remembers, “Gra’Moose! You sang Climb Upon my Pony... ‘I’ll take you where you’ve been,’ instead of ‘...where I’ve been!’” We both laugh. Even half asleep, with twilight vision, this child has 20/20 recall!  

Our final Monday morning breakfast is punctuated by Carole King’s Really Rosie album. On it, Ms. King has put music to all four of Maurice Sendak’s tiny books: Alligators All Around, Pierre, Chicken Soup with Rice, and One was Johnny. Miss D has memorized nearly all of the lyrics to all of these songs/stories, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but AM surprised that she’s also memorized virtually all the words to Dar Williams’s Song, I Had No Right, and she sings along with the CD in her mom’s car on a brief drive this morning. Heavy lyrics. Powerful images. She’s questioning her elders about death, which seems to spring - unbidden - from all quarters; from lightning strikes in Venice, to war in Gaza, to her teacher’s report that her brother was struck dead by lightning as a child, to whirlpools and rip-tides sucking folks under, to my mom - her Great Grandma’s death, to Frozen, where the parents go off and never return, and to Ms. Dar’s song.

I Had No Right

God of the poor man this is how the day began
Eight codefendants, i, daniel berrigan
Oh and only a layman’s batch of napalm
We pulled the draft files out
We burned them in the parking lot
Better the files than the bodies of children

I had no right but for the love of you
I had no right but for the love of you

Many roads led here, walked with the suffering
Tom in guatamala, phillip in new orleans
Oh it’s a long road from law to justice
I went to vietnam, I went for peace
They dropped their bombs
Right where my government knew I would be

I had no right but for the love of you
I had no right but for the love of you

And all my country saw
Were priests who broke the law

First it was question, then it was a mission
How to be american, how to be a christian
Oh if their law is their cross and the cross is burning

Aaaaaaaaah the love of you
Aaaaaaaaah the love of you

God of the just I’ll never win a peace prize
Falling like jesus
Now let the jury rise
Oh it’s all of us versus all that paper
They took the only way they know who is on trial today
Deliver us unto each other, I pray

I had no right but for the love of you
And every trial I stood, I stood for you

Eyes on the trial
8am arrival
Hands on the bible

Reassurance required.

Humming them safely home, for the next six hours, with songs of protection, including chants to Ganesh - Remover of Obstacles. 

Music had BETTER HATH the power!!!