Another Song About You

    I heard so many of those songs all my life

    I did not memorize many

    But the themes and the tunes became part of my heart

    My soul

    I knew some people, here and there, from far and wide.

    Years of knowing, smiling, sharing, imparting, 

    Then, I met you.

    Did I know at that time that all the songs had you in it?

    How was I to know?

    The ecstatic love, the bluesy days, and the long lonely nights?

    The jealous lover, the rejected pretender, the down on his luck anti-hero?

    The rager, the rocker, the notes taker,

    The monster, the rake, the heart breaker.

    All of them you.

    With me.

    Or without me.

    Like Bono sings with U2.

    Or Carly Simon, or James Taylor, or Cat Stephens.

    Billy Joel and Elton John.

    The illustrious Beatles.

    Prince, Michael Jackson, the Marvelous Mighty Supremes.

    Every genre, even the classical and baroque.

    

    I cannot escape it.

    I suffer from accumulation disease.

    The experiences and memories pile up

    The good and the bad

    The ridiculous and sublime

    The awful and awesome

    The sweet and the sour

    Those crazy tunes we heard once

    The favorite ballad we heard hundreds of times

    The Piano Man

    And on

    The raps (okay, not a ton of them), the country twangs and longings,

    The romantic Latin love songs

    All the time-worn rock ballads

    Folk song nostalgia 

    Since there was you...

    Here is another.

    Like the one you dedicated to me after I returned

    From the war zone.

    All our kids in tow.

    That song was you.

    Perhaps some people disassociate all the music that they know from the people that they have known.

    I cannot.

    They are inextricably, irrevocably, unabashedly intertwined.

    The music is you.