David Jackson

Gone
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town,
Far off
Everybody loved her.
So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold
On a dream she wants.
Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went.
Nobody knows why she packed her trunk.
A few old things and is gone.

One with her little chin
Thrust ahead of her
And her soft hair blowing careless
From under a wide hat,
Dancer, singer, a laughing passionate lover.

Were there ten men or a hundred hunting Chick?
Were there five men or fifty with aching hearts?
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer.
Nobody knows where she’s gone.

On Getting Old.

It’s a strange sensation, being sixty.

Feel as I have won a battle

struggling up a mountain of years,

Now that I’ve captured the high

Grounds I can look back and smile

sans regrets.

Look ahead and see a new

beginning, ’cause I now that I’ll be

a flower on an almond tree.

***

Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer performing Crocodile Man

Hey Tracy sings a folk standard. You know this song.

“SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS”
SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
–Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

***