RIVERSONG

INTRODUCTION Nearly all of the poems included in Riversong are new. They are expressions of personal love, transcendental realization, and my deep involvement with nature and music. STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW, that starts off the FOREVER SONGS Section, for example, is a journey from youth's first realization of the power of music, when as a nine-year-old boy, lying in bed, I held a plastic radio up to my ear, listening to "The Grand Ol' Opry," and heard for the first time the magical guitar of Chet Atkins. I had never heard anything remotely like what he was doing with his music. I was transported into the first heaven I had ever known. That musical experience awakened me to the realization that life itself is a stream, a river, an eternal flowng that forever surrounds us and infuses us and carries us through waves of music, which only sometimes do we become aware of. Life is a RIVERSONG filled with light, fire, and beauty. Life itself is that RIVERSONG. As my life streamed on, other adventures appeared to me in that music flow - such as running away from home in Big Spring west Texas as a 14-year-old boy, hitchhiking to Memphis, stealing a row boat, and sailing down the Mississippi River. That journey was the first of many adventures that river-streamed through my life, including learning how to drink beer as a college student, how to make love, and, later on, how to play guitar, which hearkened me back to the music of Chet Atkins. STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW also includes a mini-biography of my journey as the lead guitarist with a "wild-haired singer" (which some readers will recognize as Tim Buckley.)