Processed Bluegrass, and a Poem

June 15, 1:27 a.m.

I’m just south of Paducah. I like that name—it makes me think of “Palookaville,” but then when I typed it just now, I was thinking of the time of the Raj—of “howdah” and “hookah.” Of course, I’ve probably mixed up both geography and lexicography.

Mercy, have I heard a lot of old music tonight. Right now it’s “Kiss on My List” (I think that’s the name) by Hall & Oates. Earlier, when I was driving down the Bluegrass Parkway, it was “Breakfast in America” and “Huggin’ Lovin’ Squeezin’” (or whatever it’s called) and “House of the Rising Sun” and “Happy Together” and that execrable Billy Joel song that oughta be called “Women—Whaddya Gonna Do?”

And earlier than that, it was Richard Thompson, with, among other wonderful things, two songs I heard at the very first of his concerts I attended, in 1988, and haven’t heard since: “I Still Dream” and “Gypsy Love Songs.” It was a wonderful concert, although I got more than a hint of some road-weariness, although only when they were offstage. Such energy for four guys whose combined age must be over 200—and that’s just the band; the crew was working like crazy as well. I was amused to see Tom Dube, who was doing sound off stage left, snapping a bunch of photos during (I think) “Hard on Me” and “Gypsy Love Songs.”

I haven’t seen the tour bus, though I imagine they’re making the same drive I am tonight. I’m slightly less of a quarter of the way from Lexington to Bonnaroo. I had to stop for a bathroom, and this McDonald’s also promised wifi (turned out it wasn’t FREE wifi). So I’m storing up more stuff to post when I’m in the middle of the bohemian mudfield.

Just before I hit the Bluegrass Parkway, I drove through an area with the most amazing smell: a very pure, clean-smelling horse manure, plus sweet hay. Must be where all the best horses do their business.

I love the air at night, in the summer, when I’m driving. It started to rain a bit a few miles back, and I had to close up the car again—bummer, because the open air is ever so much more pleasant than the A/C.

OK, I better make tracks.

Before I forget, I was thinking about this poem I wrote recently, and I thought I’d post it here, since it’s almost topical. It was inspired by a Sufi dance class I saw at FloydFest a couple of years ago. I submitted it to a magazine right before I left for ‘Roo.

SUFI DANCERS AT WOWFEST

Dancing ‘til my feet don’t touch the ground

I lose my mind and dance forever…Turn my world around…
--Richard Thompson, “Night Comes In”

It was the music that took me
to a mountainside Medina
in the Blue Ridge of my Methodist mother.

Admission to the holy city required an orange wristband,
expulsion of glass from coolers, the mark of Cain
for permission to imbibe certain elixirs.
In a corner of the cowfield was a circle, chanting, turning.

I have seen the dervishes, those fellows in cone hats and coats,
trying to pull down the veil of heaven.
Here: Radford sophomores, wrapped in their mothers’ beads
and Old Navy capris, chipped pink polish on their filthy toes,
gathering holiness to take back to Hell Week.

When I was a child,
I grasped the twin posts of the basketball backboard
and, hand over hand,
wove my kidself through them in the 8 of infinity, all recess long.
Branches swam in curls of green. I saw my own dreams,
a lazy revelation, slow as a double feature.
Sometimes, satori came
as the smack of blacktop on my cheek.

It seems we need our circles. We make our hajj,
to light and back again,
each step itself a light. At Christmas, we unravel the fairy lights,
from their tangle of the year before,
farther and farther from the socket.
Then we wind them around the tree—
a cascade, a stair, a nest of circles.

We always turn back, because God moves faster than our eyes.
Although we grow, although we seek the straight-up path,
we are pulled into orbit.
This is our prayer: to refuse the circle,
even as, in turning away,
we turn.