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Sunday, July 09, 2006

Stephens In The Night - with audio

audio link

Sometimes in the night

I walk the way of Stephens

Under a fleeting moon

There to meet old friends

Who join me in the moment

Some twenty plus years ago

In a spectral gaze I see all at 23

As I struggle to find my way


Faces of teachers speak silent expressions

Up and down the walls and halls of Stephens


A kiss unmet, an invitation lilted, a hand not taken

Endless tests and auditions, words forgotten


In the day I become bald and fat, but in that place

Fields round the grounds aglow in faded grace


There walks a muscled youth with thick brown hair

Also in that place see the starlit eyes of those once fair


Unsure how to engage the willowy memory

I wander on with angst in quiet revere


Then looking down like a bird on those below

As Far away as their embraces are from mine now


Where are those lost in sleep so sweet,

Fairies, sprites, dancers lithe, petite


You clarion singers and mummers follow,

In winged reverberations like hawk and swallow


How is it this night that my flesh has become a shadow

Of a long ago forgotten young and lonely actor


Who like The Flying Dutchman, must return

On a purple cobalt foaming of ocean's churn


With the stars of so many souls once familiar

Away from college town passages provincial


Playhouse, chapel, barn and naked lake

Time's jet streams passing goodbyes spake


Of scurrying possum and hurrying skunk

Beetles and crickets creeping in flora's funk 


Now carry this one back from Columbia

To the bewildering hot glow of  L A


Among joy and sadness in tumbling flight


Fare Thee Well Till Another Long Deep Night