john prine...hello in there..

There are so many John Prine songs I love, but this must be my favorite. I certainly post it often enough and think about it so much. So, here it is again.

Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan - One Too Many Mornings

Just like my poem below--one too many mornings. What does it matter? Love this song

The Picture I Could Not Take

I wanted to take a picture
of them, two white heads

so close to one another,
his long, pale neck--slender as a swan's--

turned toward hers, toward the light;
she there in the chair next to his bed,

speaking his name, her speckled
hand on his bruised and swollen arm,

these two the most delicate, yet strongest
of the late summer blossoms, leaning

toward one another, toward the light,
nearing dawn, her eyelids closing

like the moonflower in the morning sun;
death enveloping them like the morning fog.

I had planned to bring my camera
back to the hospital that morning, back

to the large corner room where his sons
and wife kept vigil, his breathing labored,

the hiss of the oxygen the only sound
for minutes at a time, but life had other

plans, and death--well, death lifted,
just as the fog had done, and took

with it any uncertainties, and gave way
to a room filled with sunlight and farewell.

Emmylou Harris - All my tears + Goodbye

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden

Neil Young-Only Love Can Break Your Heart