The Trinity Session
June 11 2021
The pleasure I feel
when I share a favourite song,
introduce an artist
she's likely never heard of.
Especially when it resonates;
how we have this small thing in common,
and how pleased I am
to have thought of her
when I was listening alone.
How we unconsciously search
for commonalities,
and how these minor intersections
are so easily found
and provide such delight.
Especially when we find ourselves preoccupied
by difference,
the othering
of nations
and races
and faiths,
the xenophobic suspicions
that cleave
as well as harden us.
We are generations apart,
and now I realize
that all those lost years
that seemed to pass in a blur
conferred more than I imagined,
and that from simply having lived
I have learned.
As well as heard.
The Cowboy Junkies, for example,
who should never be allowed
to fade to black.
How sad
that our fascination with novelty
means too little endures,
that overwhelmed by abundance
so much of worth gets missed.
And how odd
that cleave contains opposites,
meaning to split
as well as to join.
That hardening makes us impervious
but also fully formed.
I hear her a cappella voice,
the high plaintive sound
of pedal steel guitar.
Sweet Jane
my misguided angel
walking after midnight under moonlit skies.
And me
so lonesome I could cry,
200 miles more
and drawing closer to her fire.
I've had this album on repeat in the
CD player in my car. I was thinking that the next chance I get, I
should introduce my young friend to it; this wonderful piece of music
that risks being consigned to obscurity by generational change. I was
thinking how pleased I'd be if she loved it as well.
And then I was thinking that in a world riven by difference and belligerence, by suspicion and xenophobia, how we seek out commonality, and how much of it there is between us. Human nature has programmed us for both affiliation and othering. But the better angel of free will means that we are able to choose which.
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