Going silent for a little while / 16 years ago and 52 years ago on December 8

Changing of the Guards

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Sixteen years

Sixteen banners united over the field

Where the good shepherd grieves

Desperate men, desperate women divided

Spreading their wings ’neath the falling leaves

Fortune calls

I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace

Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down

She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born

On midsummer’s eve, near the tower

The cold-blooded moon

The captain waits above the celebration

Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid

Whose ebony face is beyond communication

The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid

They shaved her head

She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo

A messenger arrived with a black nightingale

I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow

Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil

I stumbled to my feet

I rode past destruction in the ditches

With the stitches still mending ’neath a heart-shaped tattoo

Renegade priests and treacherous young witches

Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you

The palace of mirrors

Where dog soldiers are reflected

The endless road and the wailing of chimes

The empty rooms where her memory is protected

Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times

She wakes him up

Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking

Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks

She’s begging to know what measures he now will be taking

He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching on to his long golden locks

Gentlemen, he said

I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes

I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards

But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination

Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards

Peace will come

With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire

But will offer no reward when her false idols fall

And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating

Between the King and the Queen of Swords

Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music

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The sky is exquisitely clear of today after intermittent smoke since the beginning of September.  This morning I took a two-hour walk through the woods, through the beautiful city cemetery, back through the woods, returning refreshed and renewed.

December 8 will be my 16th blog birthday.  I'll be going silent until then, reading your blogs but not commenting and not posting anything here.

Here is my first blog post, written on the 36th anniversary of the day R returned from Vietnam.  A wise and thoughtful person had suggested that I do something different on December 8 in 2006, that I bring something new to a day that had caused me such pain for so many years.  So much has healed since I began blogging.

The last time I took a blog break was in 2011.  Looking at the video I took then, it is shocking to see how green everything was.  We haven't had any substantial rain since last spring.  Many of our trees, deciduous and evergreen, are stressed and some appear to be dying.  We did have a rainy spring.  I hope that we have our usual month of steady clouds and rain in November.

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Sometimes these Bob Dylan lyrics come to me:

Peace will come

With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire

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Sending love always to blog friends near and far.