A MEDLEY FOR PETE
A MEDLEY FOR PETE
2/18/2014
Your music was a long time passing; where
has it gone? I know the lyrics by heart but I need
a guitar and a vibrant tenor to lead my life’s
sing-a-long, help me overcome my fear of singing out.
With you playing harmony I shall not be moved.
No, I’ll stay in this land till it truly is yours and mine,
as it was meant to be. Your music made the land
sweeter than wine so I rambled its ribbons of highway,
then found myself waist deep in the Big Muddy
during the season of war. I turned turned turned
toward the season of peace and swore it was not too late.
Your banjo was my hammer of justice, your voice
the bell that freed me; the song you sang all over this land
was my anthem. These days, when I’m feeling
old and alone, I shine my little light on your graveyard
and listen to the music that is still playing there.
Sherman Pearl is a retired journalist and publicist who came to poetry in his senescence. Since then he has published four books (latest: The Poem in Time of War, Conflu:X Press, 2004) and is working on a fifth. He is among the founders of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival and a former co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets.
