Happy Birthday Bob!

I can remember laying on the floor in the dining room, in that miserable teenage way, listening to Rainy Day Women playing on the cabinet-style Hi-Fi, thinking that if I did not get out of that house, I would never discover my true self or. . . or anything. I was probably right.

Bob Dylan's music has carried me through almost everything since. I tip my hat to Bob on his birthday tomorrow. I may just go out and buy his newest CD to celebrate.

Driving West in 1970
Robert Bly

My dear children, do you remember the morning
When we climbed into the old Plymouth
And drove west straight toward the Pacific?

We were all the people there were.
We followed Dylan's songs all the way west.
It was Seventy; the war was over, almost;

And we were driving to the sea.
We had closed the farm, tucked in
The flap, and we were eating the honey

Of distance and the word "there."
Oh whee, we're gonna fly
Down into the easy chair. We sang that

Over and over. That's what the early
Seventies were like. We weren't afraid.
And a hole opened in the world.

We laughed at Las Vagas.
There was enough gaiety
For all of us, and ahead of us was

The ocean. Tomorrow's
The day my bride's gonna come.
And the war was over, almost.