ONCE THE PAGE IS READ

When we draw that first breath, pulling air in from the outside, when we need make an effort to suckle from the nipple; I believe that is the beginning, the moment we become who we are, literally. I’m not looking for an argument with conception-fundamentalists but that’s what I believe. From then on, like graphite from a pencil point onto the page, as long as we keep making our mark, we have a life. It takes both pencil and paper to record our story. When we lift the point to cross a ’t’ or dot an ‘i’ or skip word to word - we have to sleep sometime. 

When poets submit their verse to the math of music, it ascends from poetry to song. Besides a clever, compelling story, beyond the word-smithing; song has to fit in a small envelope. I know, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen songs can go on forever but still. Composers write symphonies to be rehearsed and premiered in grand music halls. Song writers scribble on napkins, flesh tunes out in someone’s basement, then test them on street-corner passer-byes. Poetry is wonderful word play and poetry tells us a story but not like a song. 

One of the best song writers of my lifetime is Don Mclean. Of course he wrote the classic, ‘American Pie’ - “. . . them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing, this’ll be the day that I die. . .” Most people know another Mclean song but come up blank on its title; “Starry, starry night, portraits hung in empty halls, frameless heads on nameless walls, with eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.” The title is ‘Vincent’, a tribute to Vincent Van Gogh. All of a sudden the lyrics make sense. In 1970 Mclean wrote ‘And I Love You So’. It is always, always mentioned when artists and critics debate the best love songs of all time. The words tell a story that could fill volumes, still it only requires four short verses and a chorus. The last verse goes, “ The book of life is brief, and once the page is read, all but love is dead, this is my belief.” Leaves me speechless; what else can you say?

In this life, all you can do is sing your song, writing as you go. You put the pencil to the page every morning when you become self aware again, you have been blessed with another day. When I die, they will close the book on me but its pages will still be penciled full, loads of stories and even a few songs. I saw a cartoon the other day, of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Your view is from behind as Charlie laments, “You know, a day will come and we will die, both of us.” You sense the long pause then Snoopy replies, “Yes, but all the other days, we won’t.”  - Once the page is read, all but love is dead, this is my belief.