CoffeeShop Blues: 2015 Traveler's Edition | Page 66

CoffeeShop Blues GRAND CANYON The abyss yawns with a sigh of boredom So many years waiting for god on the edge of a canyon The first time was in 1968 Carried by VW German engineering Puttering across the USA healing The fractured life of two children of divorce Who sought solace in mystery And smoked a joint and joked about hiking To the bottom of the canyon I was surprisingly practical and we made love Then drove to San Francisco Put flowers in our hair I lost you somewhere between Marin County And Austin Texas...we stopped by the canyon together one last time But didn’t talk about going to the bottom Instead I got educated and grew a suit And spent thirty years reading about Phantom Ranch In travel magazines handed out by stewardesses So many faces I can’t remember Silence in the wisp of wild oats Bending with the wind Children come children go Whispering daddy when you coming home In a cell phone at 35,000 feet Suddenly I’m older than social security age And thank god for one last chance To correct a lifetime of mistakes I boarded the plane with my last family Finished the molly bloom chapter in Ulysses For the fourth time in the same book I read Tattered pages and notes in Joyce’s handwriting I’d copied From his manuscript I found at the UT Humanities Research Center 66