A Man Like You, But Older (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
Asked if it isn’t weird to be at an awards ceremony with Gregory Peck,
Dylan says, “Well, listen, everything’s weird. You tell me something
that’s not weird.” He might as well have said “big,” that his songs are
a witness to magnitude, that your poems are. And why shouldn’t they be?
Poetry does make things happen. A friend says, "I wanted
to let you know that my stepfather is chattering like
a schoolboy about a poem of yours on my Facebook page.
This may not seem like much to you, but this guy has been
giving me a hard time since I was two. You built a bridge
between people who never understood each other before."
How’d that happen? Magic, that’s how. I know the poem
The two musicians pour forth their souls abroad
in such an ecstasy as to charm the audience
like none I’ve ever seen before, and when
they finish, they rise and hug each other,
and then the tabla player bends down
and touches the feet of the santoor player in an obvious gesture
of respect, but what does it mean? I don’t find out
until the next day at the Econolodge in Tifton, GA,
where I stop on my way home after the concert