River Song

Back in 1999 I was still reeling from the bubble bursting on my religious delusions and the poem I wrote here reflects where I was at that time and in some ways still am.  Rivers are so symbolic of so many things: time, life, commerce, faith, love, connecting us, separating us, uniting us, dividing us, it is our history, our ancestry, life, death, from the cradle to the grave and returning again; from the rain, to the river, to the sea, to the sky to rain again and to repeat the cycle forever and ever.  The River flows on and on with out stopping.  I find that I am in that river, a part of that river--for a while, perhaps forever, and that's okay.  The River will flow long after I am gone, just as it was flowing long before I was ever around and yet, in the River I've always been around and will always be.  I guess you might say I kind of lost my faith there for a while.  I guess that wasn't such a bad thing.  I guess you could say I found a River.

Anyway, I wrote this poem/song not from my mind at all.  I wrote it like a prophecy.  I didn't worry about sanity or reason or anything.  I wrote it as a song, sort of, but only recently found a tune to put it to.

River Song

What is life, now?
Is it some kind of illusion?
A dream that we all share, now?
A common confusion?

Then I'll sit down by a riverbank
And listen to the babble.
And the babblin' of the River
Will be a brand new Bible.

And I wonder 'bout the animals,
Do they have a soul and then,
Do they die and go to Heaven?
Are they plagued with mortal sin?

And what about those insects?
Does an insect resurrect?
Does he rise like leaven to an insect heaven?
Does he finally get respect?

And when the dream is over,
And I'm restin' 'neath the clover,
Go listen to my river babble,
"Kenny's crossin' over like a starry-eyed lover."

Twistin' Turnin' River
Runnin' windin' ever
Everything deliver
Blood o' gold and sheen o' sliver

Dyin' Dyin' Death defyin'
Here to Lethe and back again.
Only truth and no denyin'
Always workin' always tryin'

She pulls my heart. She cleans my sin.
She's where I'm going.  She's where I've been.
End to end and round to round.
I listen to that River sing
A liltin' laughin' lovin' sound
That'd make me almost want to drown.
Make me almost want to bring
And end to breath and everything.
Then she gives me life all over.
Gives me hope and makes me see
The glory of a river lover--
This desperate soul recover
From delusion's fantasy
And all the things he cannot see.

What is life now?
When the supper things is done
And we gather 'round with Riley
And we has the mostest fun.

You can listen to the witch tales
That the preachers shout about
An how the goblins 'l getcha'
If ya' don't watch out.

Or you can listen to that River
As she trickles over stones,
As she winds her way to heaven,
as she cleans your rottin' bones--

For time, she is a River.
And space is muddy water.
The galaxies are eddies
And we can go no farther

Than the milkweed on the wind.
Five billion little souls, a driftin' in the air
Who fall into the current
And can't get anywhere.

But if I let the River take me.
If I let her have her way,
I'll flow with her forever
And ever in a day--

In the undulating movement,
The gentle push and shove
Of the never-ending river
And her never-ending love.