I have a friend and she comes from the high plains,
Wise as the hills and fresh as the rains.
Took me an atlas to find her town,
to realize that the world is round.

I have a friend and she taught me daring,
Threw back the windows and let the air in.
She taught me how to be easy too
and I had a lot of unlearning to do.

For all she knows,
Bless my Blue Moon Rose.
Oh for all she knows,
Bless my Blue Moon Rose

I have a friend and we talk about books.
She comes around and she drinks while I cook.
She seems at home in this tiny place,
but with her she brings wide open space

And all she knows.
Bless my Blue Moon Rose.
Oh, for all she knows,
Bless my Blue Moon Rose.

I have a friend and she comes from the high plains,
Wise as the hills and fresh as the rains.
She seems at home in this tiny place,
but with her she brings wide open space

And all she knows.
Bless my Blue Moon Rose.
Oh, for all she knows,
Bless my Blue Moon Rose.

Bless my Blue Moon Rose.

I have a friend and we talk about books.
She comes around and drinks while I cook.
I have a friend, she taught me daring,
Threw back the windows and let the air in.

- Everything But The Girl


2:04:11 PM    sro home /

THE LOVE LETTER

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing.”

I knew he was lying because even as I asked, I watched his words fill the screen. I tried to read them from my side of the room, squinting and holding my magazine neglected in my lap. The words on the page seemed leaden compared to those springing from nowhere while his fingers tapped the keyboard. I knew he was writing about me, about my death. He was trying to mold something you could not touch into something to observe closely, hold up to the light and twist while examining all sides.

I wished I could create like he did. I wanted to extract my thoughts from air and produce a rabbit, a bouquet, a bright silk scarf from nothing. I wanted to look at a blank page and see land, look at dark and see light, look at the long days and see hope.

I was good at other things. I could tell a joke because I was good with a map. I could start with an entrance - a parrot walking into a bar, an arrival at heaven’s gate - and navigate my way to the punch line. It wasn’t creation but it was patiently crawling along the floor and feeling the cracks of the wood leading to the door.

He saw the whole house - the floor, the windows, the roof, the nails. He was like living with God in his way, and being around God was a blessing and a hard thing. Only God, I thought, saw the whole house and to those of us pressed like a turtle to the ground, the picture was too big to carry.

Once I watched him tear up when cars were sold on the TV screen.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because”, he said, “so many people just walk.”

Feet marching across Earth, mothers carrying children across fields for food. I could not imagine the sun on an old man’s back while dust buzzed like gnats around his shoes. I could not see anything unless it was placed before me like a Blue Plate Special at a roadside diner. I was faithless and it’s why I was reluctant to let go. I could not see anything beyond the life we made ourselves.

He was God, I was the skeptic. I asked questions. “What are you thinking about?” “What do you want?” “Why should we go?” I begged him for a story about my life, to produce a fable about how to accept death. I wanted God to show me how to pray.

One night we were laying in the dark and as his breathing become more and more measured like crickets, I asked “What would you do if I died in my sleep?”

Just when I thought he had forgotten me, he said “I would wait until I died and we could both wake up together.”

I wanted to hear about tears, my family and all my old clothes being taken away by the Salvation Army. Instead his answer lulled me asleep with thoughts of walking through the night to morning when we’d open our eyes and begin our day.

10:36:11 AM    sro home /