Although this is my favorite time of year, I woke up a few days ago with an uneasy feeling. When I focused on the feeling, an image came to me of something small that was trying to grow but was hindered -- something like a plant trying to grow under a rock. As I focused on the image, it shifted to a crumpled piece of paper, at which point I remembered a poem I wrote for a poetry class I took in 1967, during my first year of college:
All the babies were whining for candy
everyone I talked to said they
hated the weather
the poems in my head
had all been savagely crumpled
by my mind's hand
and when I went out to talk to the ocean
I found it had been drained
and put in storage
only an infinity of water tanks
remained
upon
the silent sand
The professor wrote "good."
While sorting through some stacks of CDs this morning, I found this, torn from a calendar block in February of 2008, during the last months of Richard's life:
Let go over a cliff, die completely, and then come back to life -- after that you cannot be deceived.
(Zen saying)
"We died and were reborn and left mysteriously saved."
(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Oh Sister")
Listen to Bob Dylan at 23 years old, being interviewed on the Les Crane Show:
Dylan: Yeah.
Crane: ... in almost everything you say. What is your main message?
Dylan: Eat?
Crane: No, I don't think that's it. And that's a cute answer but that's not the message.
Dylan: Yeah. Aah. My main message is, ah, you know (giggles), you want it in one word (giggles, audience laughs), one word!
Crane: No.
Dylan: Well, I'll tell ya Les.
Crane: Yeah, Bob.
Dylan: One word message. It's just, ah, 'Be', you know.
Crane: Be?
Dylan: Be. Be period. Is.
Crane: How about love?
Dylan: Love? That's an OK word, yeah, That's all right I guess, but it's been used a LOT, it's been used a lot.
Crane: But that's part of your message, isn't it?
Dylan: Love? Well, yeah, but everybody says that.
Crane: That doesn't make it anything wrong with it.
Dylan: No, yeah, anybody can say it.
Crane: What about 'swing'?
Dylan: Swing? That's a good message.
Crane: Is that part of your message?
Dylan: Swing. Swing. Love. Be. Is. Was. Were. Double.
Crane: Double?
Dylan: Double up, once in a while.
Crane: Yeah (audience laughter). You're gonna sit there and I, I put on these duds for you tonight.
Dylan: You did?
Crane: In a tribute to you and you're gonna sit there and put me on, right?
Dylan: No, I'm not putting you *on*, everybody always thinks that (audience laughter).
The transcript came from here.
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