Man, I could get philosophical on this one, but I don't think it’s the right move.
If you are willing to overlook things like eating meat and not really having studied Buddhism per se, I am a secular Buddhist. I like the ideas in it that I have come across and I don't have to go to any meetings or throw money at it. I like the idea of trying to be present, because I struggle with it, and that’s where this one started. The neighbor’s chickens were in my front yard and as is common, some deer were napping between my back porch and a hank of raspberries that is sufficient to obscure their kids from the neighbors. I’m reminded of that scene in the movie Anchorman where the dim whitted weather man just starts naming things around the office. I love lamp. There was a bowl of apples on the counter and a 20 pound bag of basmati. It spins off into a fantasy of my life from there.
I have this romantic notion of what it must be like to be a touring singer songwriter lifted from road songs by Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell and Greg Brown, songs that pull back the veil from the rock star myth and humanize the thing.
At one point in time the whole rockstar lifestyle appealed to me, but my interests and needs have become simpler. Maybe it’s buddhism. I can see the notions I hold with a certain remove. I can accept their transient nature, their impermanence… sometimes easily.
And I don’t feel odd about putting a premium on talking about my dreams out loud, like they might be already real. I imagine myself to be. It’s like praying a little, to examine ones notions in unromantic relief and out loud.
It came out very quickly, this one. The rhymes are easy. The images logically follow. Once I had placed myself I could run into the images and go where they took me.
In a real way, the image of me that I have as a guy with a guitar is a crutch.
It is a crutch I intend to keep.
Crutches
Neighbor’s chickens in the front yard, deer in the back, apples in a bowl on the counter, rice in a sack, low and outside the sun is making it’s winter way. It’s laying down on the kitchen floor in the middle of the day.
The hillbillies all went home once the barn was up, sawdust swept into the corner, whiskey in an old tin cup, I thank gor I’ve got a place to keep my too danmed much. Throw a bag of clothes over my shoulder, and pick up my crutch.
Two lane blacktop in the morning, diner lunch at noon, I show my crutch to strangers and I tell the truth too soon. Birds are circlin’. Maybe I should not go. I think the worst thing I ever did was to believe I did not know.
Pick a little. Talk a little. Pick a little bit more. Take a handful of twenty dollar bills. Turn down a chance to score. Sneak off to a hotel and lie down by myself. Fall asleep with the TV on and contemplate my wealth.
I just do what the birds do. I do like the sun. Come back to the same place next year claiming to be on the run. Same people in the front, same twenty dollar bills. If I want to feel my spirit rise, I just crutch up into the hills. Throw my crutches down and run, cuz that’s how good it feels.
I recorded this within a couple days of having written it.
It's on the record called Where the Cover's Deep you can buy on Bandcamp
Here:
https://samknutson.bandcamp.com/album/where-the-covers-deep
Also there is a video:
https://youtu.be/tcFPbI7K9qU?si=2WmQLqXMeYi6ZYde
